Norse Guitar Feeds

Take it from the pros: There’s no wrong way to collect guitars.

Let’s talk about collecting.

Guitars, yes. But also … other things.

I’ll admit it—I’ve been a collector for a long time. It really kicked in after I joined the family business. Suddenly, I had a little disposable income and a curiosity for auctions. The kind you actually had to show up for—no internet, no clicking a button in your pajamas. Just paddles, raised eyebrows, and the thrill of the chase. I thought the things I brought home were cool. My wife Diane wasn’t always convinced.

But let’s bring this back to guitars. Yes, I absolutely collect them. Mostly Martins, old and new—as you might guess—but not exclusively. Some are personal, out of my own pocket. Others are for the Martin Guitar Museum collection, which I help curate with a team that shares the same passion. We’ve built something truly special, and I’m incredibly proud of what’s on display (and what’s waiting in the wings).

Like many museums, we can only showcase a portion of our collection at any one time. We rotate pieces, we loan to other institutions, and we keep looking for the next instrument that tells a story worth preserving.

A Favorite Find

One of my most memorable guitar acquisitions happened at Sotheby’s in New York. This time, I was bidding on behalf of the company. Diane and our daughter Claire came with me, though they were a bit less excited about the auction scene. (While I was scoping out guitars, they ducked over to the American Girl store around the corner.)

As luck would have it, the guitar I was there for came up just as they returned to the gallery. I was mid-bid—enthusiastic, focused. Diane overheard the auctioneer call out the latest bid and gave me that look. I was committed. I stayed in. And I won.

She walked over and asked, “What did you just do?”

“I bought another guitar for the museum,” I told her.

She half-smiled. It wasn’t cheap.

The guitar was part of Kenny Wayne Sultan’s collection, built from the same batch of 000-42s as Eric Clapton’s iconic model. Today, it’s an important piece in our museum’s story.

You might think I’d have enough guitars, especially with two factories full of them and a world-class museum in my backyard. But I love collecting. So I keep buying guitars. Full disclosure: I’ve used the employee discount more than a few times. Still do.

George Gruhn: Collector First, Dealer Second

I’m not alone in this. My friend George Gruhn (yes, that George Gruhn) is widely known as a legendary vintage guitar dealer. But first and foremost, he’s a collector.

George first caught the bug back in 1961, as a high school student in suburban Chicago. He didn’t even play yet, but he helped his brother pick out a 1929 Martin 0-28K. That was the spark.

“I became addicted to collecting,” George told me. “For every guitar I found for myself, I’d come across dozens more I didn’t want personally, but they were such bargains I could flip them to fund my next find. Gruhn Guitars is essentially a hobby that morphed into a career.”

When I asked George about a favorite find, he lit up.

“In 1974, a pawn shop near my store called about an old Martin. It turned out to be the most elaborately ornamented early Martin I’ve ever seen—made during C.F. Martin Sr.’s era. I sold it to Steve Howe of Yes, but years later, I had the chance to buy it back. It’s still one of the crown jewels of my collection.”

“You don’t choose what to collect. It finds you—one vintage archtop or parlor guitar at a time.”

These days, Gruhn’s approach has evolved.

“Early in my career, I traveled constantly. Now, I’m more like an angler—I dangle the lure, and people bring guitars to me.”

He also offered advice to new collectors: Always buy from a reputable dealer, and ask for written guarantees or certificates of authenticity. If you’re not experienced, get the instrument appraised by someone who is. And while provenance can be important in memorabilia items, which have added appeal and higher monetary value due to prior ownership by a famous performer, George believes the core of collecting is still about the instrument: its builder, its story, and its sound.

The Passion Play

George isn’t the only one I’ve learned from. Norm Harris of Norm’s Rare Guitars is another kindred spirit. You may have seen the documentary about him—if not, add it to your list. Norm might have a storefront, but some guitars? They’re part of the family.

Closer to home, my friend Fred Oster, who you might recognize from Antiques Roadshow, has been a generous mentor over the years. Fred once told me, “You don’t choose what to collect. It finds you—one vintage archtop or parlor guitar at a time.”

All of these folks blur the line between collector and dealer. Some deal to fund their collections. Some collect to enrich their understanding of the instruments they sell. Either way, it’s about passion.

For me, collecting guitars is more than a habit; it’s a love affair. And if it turns out to be a good investment down the line? Well, that’s just a bonus. You could put your money in a 4% treasury bond, but you can’t strum one of those on the porch.

Keep on collecting.

The PRS Archon amplifier was released in December 2013 and quickly made its mark with modern metal guitarists. In 2021, the amp disappeared from PRS’ product line before being reintroduced as more affordable, Asia-built, 50W combos and heads, which remain in production. The new Archon Classic isn’t merely a rehash of the previous Archon, however. It’s a completely new and very different design. While the original Archon was a study in extremes—with pristine cleans and an ultra-high-gain lead sound—the Archon Classic is more balanced with slightly grittier clean tones and a more mid-rich gain profile.

Designed by PRS’ Doug Sewell, who was a boutique amp designer when he met Paul Reed Smith at the Dallas Guitar Show when their respective booths were adjacent to each other, the 50W, two-channel, Archon Classic head is made in Indonesia and is priced at a very reasonable $1149.

The original Archon 100 used a fairly conventional set of four 6L6GC power tubes and six 12AX7 preamp tubes, but the Archon Classic is outfitted with two JJ 6CA7 power tubes and six JJ ECC83S preamp tubes. I wasn’t too familiar with the 6CA7 power tubes so I reached out to Sewell for clarification. “Performance-wise, this tube sits nicely between an EL34 and a 6L6GC,” explains Sewell. “When voicing the Archon, this tube best fit the circuit and tone we wanted to achieve. The original U.S.-built Archons shipped with 6L6GCs. The 6CA7 Archon Classic gives a touch more British vibe and sweeter mids. Apparently Eddie Van Halen’s plexi Super Lead 100W had 6CA7s. Enough said!”

Less is More

Operationally speaking, the Archon Classic is as straightforward as you can get. The control panel has independent sets of knobs for the clean and lead channels: volume (gain), treble, middle, bass, master volume, and bright toggle switches. There’s also a set of global control knobs for presence and depth (which adds low end).

The original Archon offered power scaling on the 50W and 25W models, but neither the reissue nor the Archon Classic offer the feature. This streamlining of the Archon’s controls is by design. Sewell adds, “As the Archon matured, our objective was to scale down the features, refine the tones, provide a much more cost-effective amp for a wider customer base, and break out of the metal niche many mistakenly perceived that amp to be in.”

While PRS opted for a stripped-down approach with the Archon Classic, the back panel retains the useful bias adjustment jacks seen in the original. This allows you to use a multimeter to assess whether tubes are dead or have drifted out of spec relative to the other tubes in the unit. Adjustments can be made using a small, jeweler’s Phillips head screwdriver.

Pure Tone Machine

Where the original Archon’s clean tones are hi-fi and pristine, the Archon Classic’s cleans are grittier, with more attitude. At its lowest clean channel setting, the output is already slightly driven, particularly when a bridge humbucker is in the mix. Using a single-coil yields a slightly cleaner tone, but with gain settings this low there’s not a ton of headroom to play with, even with master volume up pretty high. But by slightly bumping the clean channel’s volume up to 9 o’clock, the amp feels significantly louder and is much better suited for a band mix.

When I push the clean channel’s volume to noon and bash away on a bridge humbucker, the Archon Classic delivers beautiful breakup that is, to my ears, just right—not too dirty but not too clean. There’s a lot of gain available in the clean channel, and if you turn up the volume between 3 o’clock and maximum, you get various shades of rhythm guitar crunch, from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to “You Shook Me All Night Long.” There’s also enough sustain here for classic-rock lead sounds. It’s not often I can get pinch harmonics to pop on an amp’s “clean” channel, but I did here, with ease.

Switching between channels is seamless and there are no pops or noise when clicking the one-button footswitch. The lead channel sounds voiced with a nod to ’70s and ’80s hard rock, rather than the more modern, scooped voice of the original Archon. With the lead channel’s volume around 10 o’clock, it’s about as dirty as the clean channel with its volume knob maxed. This is a great jumping-off point for creating an all-purpose, versatile two-channel setup, where I dialed the clean channel with the volume maxed for a hard-rock rhythm sound and bumped the lead channel’s volume to just under noon, to get a comparable but boosted sound for leads.

The Verdict

“Archon” is Greek for “ruler” and it’s not hyperbole to say the Archon Classic rules. Its simple design—the amp doesn’t even have a standby switch—makes dialing up killer sounds effortless, and such simplicity is huge when you want to get down to playing. The sole focus of the Archon Classic is tone, and that it delivers in spades.

My wife and I really enjoy living in the Northeast. Rolling hills, all four seasons, close to the coast, and plenty of day trip getaways to keep our summers busy and our vacations peaceful. One of our favorite haunts is Vermont and the town of Bennington. There are historical features there, such as the Bennington Battle Monument and the grave of the poet Robert Frost. Chiseled onto the face of his stone is the inscription, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” This lovely, simple quote perfectly summarizes my relationships with guitars.

When I was young, I started taking lessons in Nazareth, Pennsylvania—right under the shadow of the Martin Guitar factory! I had all the inspiration in the world, and yet I would choose laziness and not practice. My mom would cancel my sessions, and then the itch to play would bubble up, and I’d be on a huge creative bender. This is how it went for most of my life. Fire and ice, playing and not playing. I probably should be an amazing player, but, alas, I remain a caveman. Part of the reason for that is I just don’t have a good ear and can’t carry a tune. My wife, on the other hand, is a music teacher and has incredible musical ability. She can play just about every instrument, even the wooden fifes sold at the Bennington Battle Monument! Seriously, she plays historical music on these primitive instruments while I’m messing around with the pop guns.

In my late teens and 20s, I really went on a creative spell and there was no stopping my insanity for guitar. This was also when I was buying old guitars and piecing them back together. I met Mike Dugan (the guy who plays guitar in all my videos) and started to join bands and go to open jams. Soon I found myself buying and selling guitars and looking for my “tone.” I guess we all go through this search at one time or another, but I just couldn’t be satisfied. For a while, I played a Univox Hi-Flier and then a nice Yamaha SG-1000. Eventually, I was running through guitars like water in a stream. Never ending.

Mike Dugan would always tell me, “When you know, you know,” but I just couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t until I started hearing him play in my studio every week that I developed an ear for guitars. I mean, I still struggled tuning a guitar, but I could sense when a guitar had “it”—that zing, that bite, that crystalline quality that you could hear. Wood didn’t matter. Pickups didn’t matter. It just worked or it didn’t, and I wouldn’t be swayed. And the first guitar where I “knew” was this Kawai S160 dating to the early ’60s. The necks on these are huge, and the pickups have low output, but they all sound great. Really, I like all the Kawai electrics from the early days, but this one is my “one.”

“Have you found your guitar? Your tone? It’s out there somewhere for you.”

Located in Hamamatsu, Japan, Kawai was making pianos before their foray into electric guitars. A lot of the early Japanese guitar makers lacked understanding of the guitar, but what they did have was lovely wood and experienced wood craftsmen. These guitars are robust and solid; they could hammer in fence posts! The truss rods don’t work at all, but the necks are so chunky that it doesn’t matter! And these early S-series Kawai guitars have some of the most beautifully figured rosewood that I’ve ever seen. Simply gorgeous.

The electronics are simple and easy to navigate with just one tone and volume pot, and one on/off switch for each pickup. The pickups handle overdrive or fuzz so well. These guitars also came in three- and four- pickup versions, and all sound fine. The tremolo pictured on mine is really the one to get, because it actually works well! Since most of the Kawai guitars were imported to Chicago, they were found in the hands of many bluesmen, including Hound Dog Taylor.

So my lover’s quarrel with guitars is a real thing. But some guitars just inspire you to play, or in my case, just make some noise. So how about you? Have you found your guitar? Your tone? It’s out there somewhere for you, and here’s hoping you find “the one” … or two!

There’s nothing quite so cumbersome and unweildy as a real, honest to goodness rotary speaker cabinet – it’s probably why most guitarists who appreciate the unmistakable sound tend to use some sort of pedal-based alternative. And now Boss has brought its most compact version ever to the party.

• READ MORE: “We just looked at each other in awe” the truth behind why Jimi Hendrix started smashing guitars on stage

Boss’s original RT-20 Rotary Ensemble pedal was discontinued in 2019, despite its classic replication of the Hammond organ rotary speaker effect. But fans of the original pedal can rejoice, since the Japanese pedal giant has revisited the concept now in classic compact pedal form.  It also comes with a very fun rotating LED screen that emulates the movement of a classic rotary cab. 

Like other rotary ensemble pedals, BOSS’s own seeks to replicate some of the original 1940s combo organ voice sound, based on rotary speakers that create their signature modulation effect. As Boss says, this effect creates “depth and movement” in your recorded and live sounds.

Image: Boss

A rotary speaker sound is probably not something you’re going to use for every song of course, but that’s what makes the dinky size of the RT-2 so compelling – you can introduce the effect into your sound without taking too much real estate on your pedalboard. 

According to the Boss website, the pedal comes with a plethora of classic effects like: “A vintage rotary sound and two modified tones with enhanced spatial effects, virtual rotor display with lights that indicate treble and bass rotor speeds, fast/slow rotor speed control, drive knob to add vintage tube saturation, and a Rise/Fall Time switch [for adjusting] the transition time between rotor speeds” alongside saturation control and volume balance between treble and bass rotors via the Drive/Balance Switch.

The pedal also has four selectable pedal switching modes, making this an even more versatile piece of kit to have with you live, also particularly in its support for controlling external footswitches and expression pedals. 

The RT-2 Rotary Ensemble is available this month and is currently retailing at $239.99.

The post BOSS’s RT-2 Rotary Ensemble pedal offers classic rotary speaker sounds in a compact footprint appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Rare guitar seekers search high and low for guitars owned by the greats, in the hope that they can capture some of the same magic. But for Joe Satriani, working in a guitar shop “disillusioned” him to these collectables, simply because they don’t always sound as good as their price tag suggests.

• READ MORE: “Playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me”: Eddie Van Halen pours scorn on shredding

Having exclusive access to some of the “most expensive, the most valuable, rare guitars”, Satriani tells D’Addario, he discovered what they sounded like. And while a dream job to many, the experience made the scales fall from his eyes. “There’s nothing special about it”, Satch admitted.

Satch believes that players should “connect with the guitar” rather than chasing after vintage instruments for the sake of it. It becomes special to them, and the hallmark of their own sound. Unfortunately this would mean that buying a guitar previously owned by a guitar god doesn’t mean that you’ll get much out of it yourself.

This realisation encouraged Satriani to build custom guitars instead, but “it was really to get by week to week” he says, “and to do the gig I was doing at the time.” Outside his “disco band playing around the East Coast”, which was “going nowhere’, his solo music career was beginning to grow. Satch began realising this after receiving a short-but-sweet review of his debut solo album Not of this Earth in Guitar Player.

Despite this, Satriani still has an appreciation for unique guitars, such as the see-through Ibanez Y2K Crystal Planet prototype, designed by Junji Hotta in 1999 to coincide with his Crystal Planet album. Alongside some other gear, he sold this guitar on Bananas at Large to collectors. Even though he’s disillusioned with vintage guitars himself, he still recognises them as artefacts that people love to collect.

In the same interview, Satriani also talks about how he struggles with being extroverted on stage. “I don’t ever feel like myself” he says about the experience of playing to his fans – certainly a surprising thing for someone with as many massive gigs on his CV as Stach.

The post Joe Satriani on why he doesn’t rate vintage guitars “The musician has to connect with the guitar for it to become special” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The brand new amp can switch from 1-watt to ¼-watt and incorporates a direct post-speaker line output – a first for Sundragon

Farrell filed his own 30-page complaint against his former bandmates – citing a years-long campaign of bullying and harassment

For decades, players such as Keith Richards have been swapping out their Tele's neck single-coil for a humbucker – now Fender has unveiled its most high-spec take on the format yet

Wilco guitarist and frontman Jeff Tweedy has just announced he’ll be releasing a 30-track triple album this September – and if that seems excessive to you, well, he doesn’t really care.

Speaking in the latest issue of Mojo, Tweedy explains that Twilight Override is a “special” magnum opus of a record. “It’s a really beautiful evolution,” he says. “I’m not holding back or protecting myself, and I don’t care if people think a triple record’s too long.”

For anyone who thinks it is too long, he has one thing to say: “I mean… Fuck you!” he laughs. “You don’t have to listen to it…”

• READ MORE: The Gear Used on Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience

Twilight Override sees Tweedy yet again working with his children, vocalist Sammy and drummer Spencer, as well as the rest of his usual touring band. So far, only four tracks have been shared from the record; Enough, One Tiny Flower, Out in the Dark, and Stray Cats in Spain explore a plethora of the Illinois’ rocker’s sides, from his harmonica-loving alt-country to his charming cerebral indie rock reflections.

Tweedy notes that Stray Cats In Spain in particular was “written with [his band’s] gift for vocal harmony in mind”, while the yet-to-be-released Feel Free is a seven-minute ode to self-expression. “It’s saying forget yourself, be unburdened by yourself,” he tells Mojo.

The seven-minute tune is another example of Tweedy not caring about how long a record or a track is. In fact, he wishes it was even longer: “I’d like for people to add their own couplets to it and make it the world’s longest song.”

Elsewhere, Tweedy has explained that his upcoming record is a testament to the magic of creativity. “When you choose to do creative things, you align yourself with something that other people call God,” he explains in a press release [via NME]. “When you align yourself with creation, you inherently take a side against destruction. You’re on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Creativity eats darkness.”

“Sort of an endless buffet these days – a bottomless basket of rock bottom. Which is, I guess, why I’ve been making so much stuff lately. That sense of decline is hard to ignore, and it must be at least a part of the shroud I’m trying to unwrap. The twilight of an empire seems like a good enough jumping-off point when one is jumping into the abyss.”

“Twilight sure is a pretty word, though. And the world is full of happy people in former empires, so maybe that’s not the only source of this dissonance. Whatever it is out there (or in there) squeezing this ennui into my day, it’s fucking overwhelming. It’s difficult to ignore.”

“Twilight Override is my effort to overwhelm it right back. Here are the songs and sounds and voices and guitars and words that are an effort to let go of some of the heaviness and up the wattage on my own light. My effort to engulf this encroaching nighttime (nightmare) of the soul.”

Tweedy is set to embark on a solo tour in support of Twilight Override later this year. Things will kick off in Michigan on 8 October, before hitting Europe in February.

Twilight Override is out 26 September. Tickets for Tweedy’s solo tour will go on sale at 10am this Friday (18 July).

The post “F”**k you! You don’t have to listen to it”: why Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy doesn’t care if you think his albums are too long appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale has revealed what it was like to tour with Skid Row, and it seems the band are not opposed to the odd innuendo or fart joke.

Hale fronted the band for four shows after the departure of vocalist Erik Grönwall last summer, and having been a Skid Row fan since childhood, it was a pretty big deal for the vocalist and guitarist.

• READ MORE: Slash admits that he became “disillusioned” with the sound of his Marshall amps and the consistency of his sound

To not only have a great time playing music with a band but to also click with the group backstage is exactly what every artist hopes for when stepping into another camp, and Hale fitted in just fine with the Skid Row bunch.

She tells Classic Rock, “I got to know Rachel [Bolan] and Snake [Sabo] as people first before we ended up gigging together. I’ve been a Skid Row fan since I was eleven, just trying my damnedest to hit those high notes. When they asked me to be a part of it we were at a mutual friend’s birthday party, and it got brought up over cake.

“The thing that I discovered was when we were on the bus together, it doesn’t matter how old you are on the outside. On the inside, including myself, we are all fifteen-year-old boys. The fart jokes were rampant,” she admits.

“We were making all these Spinal Tap jokes about the meat in catering. They’re like, the meat is so sweaty. I don’t know why it was so funny, but this sweaty meat came up a lot, and then that ends up being a dirtier and dirtier joke. I’m so grateful for them accepting me into their camp and for allowing me to be a part of that.”

Following the announcement of Hale’s temporary appointment as vocalist for the band, she described it as “full circle”. She told Loudwire Nights, “I’m a weird in-betweener. When I was 11 through 13, I was into ‘80s metal, like Cinderella and Skid Row and all of that. But I was also getting into nu-metal in the early-2000s, Disturbed and Sevendust and Tool. The crazy thing about Skid Row is that they were the ones that carried me through over that bridge.

“They had the big choruses and everything, but then they had those later albums that were very present with the times and the weird, seedy underbelly that was the ’90s. They bridged that gap for me.”

Halestorm are currently on tour in support of Volbeat. You can find out more or grab tickets via the Halestorm website.

The post “On the inside we are all fifteen-year-old boys”: Lzzy Hale on what it’s really like to tour with Skid Row appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker joined forces to form Cream in 1966, the rock world was forever transformed. The combination of talent made for the very first supergroup, who had quietly rehearsed together in secret before exploding onto the scene. But 60s contemporary Paul Jones nearly blew the lid off the whole thing, entirely by accident…

• READ MORE: The Gear Used on Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience

In a new interview with Mojo, the Manfred Mann frontman recalled a time he was asked to form a one-off band to feature on the Elektra collaborative album, What’s Shakin’. “They had The Lovin’ Spoonful, Paul Butterfield, Al Kooper and Tom Rush. Joe Boyd [American record producer] said, ‘Look, we can’t do this without one British act,’” Jones says. “‘We’ve asked The Yardbirds and so on, and they all say no… could you put together a band?’”

Jones started brainstorming – and the first person he called up to join his new band was bassist Jack Bruce. “I said, ‘Look, would you be up for it?’ and he said, ‘yeah, I certainly would. Who else are you thinking of?”

Jones mentioned that his preference was the then-unattached Eric Clapton on guitar. “Yeah, of course – he would be anybody’s first choice. Anybody else?” Bruce responded. And that’s when Jones would utter the final piece of the Cream puzzle, suggesting: “it’d be great if we could get Ginger Baker on drums.”

“There was a silence.,” Jones recalls. “Then, Jack said, ‘How much do you know?’ I said, ‘about what?’ – ‘Oh, nothing…’”

Without realising, Jones had pieced together the next band that would define rock history. “I had just put together Cream – and they were already rehearsing!” Jones laughs.

The ad-hoc band, which would be listed on the album as ‘Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse’ recorded three songs, including an iconic Clapton cut, Crossroads. In the end, Baker would decide to opt out as he didn’t want to dilute the power of what was going on behind the scenes. “I’m not doing it,” Baker apparently said. “It’s really stupid if all three of us do this project together when we’re about to burst onto the world.”

In the end, Clapton, Bruce and Jones would be joined by Steve Winwood and drummer Pete York. The band was completed with “Ben Palmer, a great blues piano player I’d met in Oxford,” as Jones explains.

Due to the fact that many of the members of the band were under contract with other labels, including Jones, many of them performed under aliases. As Jones explains, he was credited as ‘Matthew Jacobs’ on the record, named after his two sons, while Winwood went under the alias of ‘Steve Angelo’.

Sadly, the band never recorded together again – though let’s face it, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce were rather busy over the next couple of years…

The post “I had just put together Cream – and they were already rehearsing!”: Manfred Mann frontman reveals how he inadvertently rumbled Eric Clapton’s biggest secret appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Foley returns with four ways you can freshen up those blues licks and assert your personality upon the material

It has been his number one road Strat for years, but until the iconic singer put her Dremmel to the back of its body, it didn’t have a name

Ella Feingold can count the likes of Johnny Marr, Lenny Kravitz and John Mayer as fans and she has worked with Erykah Badu, Janet Jackson, Bruno Mars and Jay-Z among others.

• READ MORE: The essential guitar albums of 2025 that you (probably) missed

You’ll have also heard her orchestrating the music in Destiny – Bungie’s groundbreaking video game – and seen her incredible funky chops on display across your Instagram and TikTok FYPs. She’s even got a new album of duets in the pipeline with jazz legend Charlie Hunter, and an incoming solo project.

An artist that clearly contains multitudes, then – we have a lot to talk about…

Image: Press

Many of your new fans have found you through your funk tutorials on Instagram – you have a very appreciative audience online!

“I mean it’s funny. A lot of the things in my career happened long before social media, but I am really happy that people also seem to enjoy watching me look at these songs that I love.

“It’s like taking apart a telephone and putting it back together. I’m very curious and especially when I want to know how something works. That applies as much to the music of Sly Stone or James Brown as it does to the world of Jeff Buckley.

“There’s something so fun about finding a part that locks in and you just drive it straight home. Kool & the Gang’s Jungle Boogie is a great example. The guitar part appears so simple but you have to keep it going for the whole song – you just hold on to this thing for dear life. It’s not about ego or shredding – it is all about concentration and maintaining the groove.

“You have to understand the phrase, then you have to develop the stamina. It’s the same thing with James Brown. Check out Ain’t It Funky Now – it’s not hard to play, but that cut is 9 minutes and 36 seconds long. So, at 6 minutes, you might fuck up and you ruin the take and the whole band has to go back to the top.”

Who else should up and coming players listen to?

“Everyone should be familiar with Curtis Mayfield. He influenced Jimi Hendrix, Prince… so many more. John Mayer once told me, ‘Yeah, you just play how you are’, and Curtis Mayfield played in a really gentle soft-spoken kind of way while addressing some hard truths that are still relevant today.

“Then there is his ‘Black Key’ tuning of F#-A#-C#-F#-A#-F#, using the Maestro rhythm and sound effects unit – all that cool stuff. There’s something familiar and comforting about his playing. I think my favourite thing with musicians is their touch.”

Ella’s Hagstrom guitar. Image: Press

Funny you should say that: no less than Johnny Marr is a fan of your work for exactly that reason. How did you two meet?

“I had done an Instagram lesson on Jerome Smith who played guitar for KC and the Sunshine Band – little did I know that he’s one of Johnny’s top three favourite guitar players. So Johnny commented ‘Nobody knows about Jerome Smith!’ and my first thought is like, ‘Oh man, I thought that was the real Johnny Marr… that’s a bummer…’ because you know you get so many of those fake accounts. And I looked again and I’m like, ‘Oh fuck, it’s really him!’

“He invited me to a show he was playing in Boston. I didn’t know what to expect and when he saw me from across the room he grabbed my arm and we talked guitar for like – no exaggeration – three hours. To the point where the cleaning crew came in and his tour manager was like, ‘Johnny, you gotta get on the bus!’

“I love the Smiths and I love his guitar playing, but I didn’t get to grow up with that music – Siouxie and the Banshees, Magazine, and Adam and the Ants. So being friends with him, like he just started to hip me to all this amazing music. I have a chorus pedal now and I’m just like, man, you’re a bad influence on me!”

How does classic 70s funk mix with Jeff Buckley and indie textures?

“Jeff Buckley might be my favourite musician of all time. There’s so much I love. His touch on the guitar and how he makes it sound, and the chord voicings. Who else makes a Telecaster sound like that, you know? Maybe Ted Greene?

“Jeff learned a lot about guitar pedals and ambient stuff from Gary Lucas, I’m positive of that. You know, with the EHX 16-second delay?. I think his Quadraverb reverb stuff might have come more from Robin Guthrie and the Cocteau Twins.

“All roads lead back to Johnny Marr right? Like, I’m like playing him Jeff Buckley stuff backstage saying, ‘Johnny you don’t understand… this guy adored you. Do you know how many Smiths songs he covered?’ and you know, Johnny gets it.”

Ella’s guitar gear. Image: Press

You have a long-standing position in Erykah Badu’s band – how did that relationship come about?

“I was on tour with Queen Latifah. My first gig ever was 2005. It was sort of like a black Lilith Fair. It was Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, so many more – Erykah liked my playing and her MD asked me to join the band.

“It’s funny I’m working on Erykah’s new record right now, and there’s absolutely some Jeff Buckley influence in my playing on this music. My first gig with her was this VH1 Soul Stage concert, which was kind of infamous, and I’ve been working with her, on and off ever since.

“I can only think of a couple of occasions in twenty years where Erykah has verbalised what she needs from me. There was one time when she wanted me to step out front and solo and then on this record she just said, ‘Make it cry bitch!’ and that was it.

“That was easy. I literally took all of the oppression and fear I face as a trans woman and I put it into the guitar and it came out. If you want me to be dead honest, that’s where the cry comes from.

“But it’s all about the vocals – the storyteller. I just listen. You have to be sensitive. I choose guitars that stay out of the way of the vocals – I use a Gibson 345 with the Varitone on position 3 which scoops out a lot of the midrange. I fitted it with Bartolini pickups which are very 80s smooth jazz – the opposite of the analogue gritty stuff that I usually enjoy. This sound has punch in the bass and treble clarity and it fits the context.

“It’s like a conversation. Maybe you’re at a dinner party and someone talks like crazy, so you just go, ‘All right, I’ll just kind of listen and interject when I can’. With Erykah again, this has never been spoken but like she’s got Rhodes and keys. So she’s got all this buttery stuff so she doesn’t need me to do more of that. She needs some grease and something slightly itchy in there.”

Your duet album Different Strokes for Different Folks with Charlie Hunter has been getting high praise from legends like Bootsy Collins and Lenny Kravitz – how does that feel?

“This whole record really was like a musical conversation between two good friends, I talk to Charlie almost every day. It’s raw and it’s real and it feels good. I feel like it’s music that you can sort of complete for yourself. Pick up your sax, blow over it, drive down the street and lose yourself and just groove to it like it’s a beat tape. You know what I mean? It is raw funk.

“Charlie’s using a six string hybrid guitar – not the eight-string version – that opens things up and my guitar is in inverted standard tuning throughout. So that’s EBGDAE low to high. We boiled the whole thing down to its essence. The way it fused together was really cool, I hope people enjoy it!”

Your debut solo record 4-Track Ephemera is a return to analogue recording with a Tascam four-track tape recorder. What attracts you to the old school creative process?

“I wanted to return to a time when I was most in love with music, which was when I was a kid in the ‘90s during grunge. Buying guitar magazines and, you know, looking at articles and watching MTV and my parents getting me the 424 for Hanukkah and just like, God, I can jam with myself! So, I just set the stuff up in a guest bedroom. Not like, oh, I’m about to make a record. Just, well, just have fun.

“I started to share stuff on Instagram. Not like, ‘Yo, check this out’, just kind of where my head’s at and suddenly people were responding, ‘Oh my god, please put this out. You’re putting this out, right?’ The response was so positive I decided to go for it.

“It’s the first music where I’m comfortable introducing my influences to each other. You can hear Sly, J Dilla and Q-Tip, Tribe Called Quest and you can hear Jeff Buckley and you can hear Johnny Marr. I’m comfortable mixing all those things and trying to find my own sound. Like a cocktail.”

Different Strokes For Different Folks by Charlie Hunter and Ella Feingold is out now. 4-Track Ephemera is out 1 August

The post “I choose guitars that stay out of the way of the vocals” how Ella Feingold became the most versatile rhythm guitar player on the planet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

EarthQuaker Devices announces the Easy Listening Analog Amp Simulator

Royer Labs has introduced the R-12 Ribbon Microphone, designed for both studio recordingand live sound applications. The new R-12 delivers high-quality performance at a sub-$1K price, offering thenatural sound of a Royer ribbon mic with the added versatility of onboard bass-cut and pad switches. The R-12excels at capturing electric and acoustic stringed instruments, vocals, brass, pianos and organs, as well asdrums and percussion instruments.

The R-12 features the same 2.5-micron direct-corrugated ribbon element as used in Royer’s industry-standard R-121 microphone, enabling it to handle the extremely high SPLs (160dB @ 1kHz) that Royer R-series mics are known for.

The R-12 features Royer’s proprietary onboard phantom-powered electronics circuitry mated to a beefed-up transformer, which combine to deliver condenser microphone output levels for recording vocals, acoustic instruments, and other quieter sound sources. The R-12’s active electronics also place a perfect load on the ribbon element at all times, enabling the microphone to deliver full sonic potential regardless of the preamplifier or DAW it’s plugged into.

By engaging the R-12s switchable -15dB pad, the mic’s output level drops to that of Royer’s non-powered R-10 ribbon mic, which is preferable for louder instruments like drums and high-volume electric guitars where more headroom is needed. Headroom-related distortion on even the loudest sound sources is non-existent.

The R-12 is also outfitted with a switchable high-pass filter precisely tuned to reduce low end proximity buildup and rumble, making it an easy choice for capturing vocal performances, close-miking instruments and loudspeaker cabinets, etc.

Completing its rich feature set, the R-12 houses an internally shock-mounted ribbon transducer, which helps isolate and protect the ribbon element while also reducing handling noise. Combined with a built-in triple-layer wind screen system, the microphone’s ribbon is effectively protected against plosives and other wind-related noise and air blasts.

John Jennings, President of Royer Labs, commented on the new R-12 Ribbon Microphone, “The R-12 is a beautifully designed ribbon mic, delivering world-class performance at a killer price. It has roots in our non-powered R-10 ribbon mic, which is in studios around the world and has been on Dave Grohl’s insanely hot live guitar cabs for years, and it contains active ribbon mic circuitry based on what we use in much more expensive Royer models. It’s an extremely versatile ribbon mic that we’re proud to release now.”

The Royer Labs R-12 Ribbon Microphone and mic mount ship in a hard-shell case, with a street price of $899 and matched pairs available for $1,849. The R-12 is expected to become available in mid/late July 2025. For additional information about the R-12, please visit www.royerlabs.com/r-12/.

At the shop, our engineers are always tinkering on breadboards, pouring their hearts into passion projects that sometimes get sidelined by part obsolescence, indecision, or just not fitting our usual vibe. That’s why we’re stoked to launch Proto Club, where anyone can snag these limited-run pedals, like the Tritone (Proto 227), a slapback pitch echo born as a B-side for our Soft Focus Deluxe but too wild for its palette, packing a call-and-response octave-up that rides sidesaddle with a blendable perfect fifth for killer three-note arpeggios. It drops today, for only $149.99, but it’s gone after two weeks! Your first Proto Club purchase scores you the exclusive Proto Club Passport booklet, stamped and ready to unlock killer perks—collect stickers with each pedal to earn bonus stuff, like unreleased or staple production pedals. Plus, you’ll get a dedicated email to send feedback straight to our engineers, making this a true community vibe. Ready to get weird with us? Catch you at the Proto Club!

Our inaugural foray into the Proto Club began as a B-side for our Soft Focus Deluxe. On that pedal, we had room for six programs, and a handful of them were just a bit too outside the scope of that device. This one, the Tritone, was universally loved by the crew but the vibes clashed with the palette of the Soft Focus Deluxe a little too hard. It’s been on some of our own pedalboards for some time. Unfortunately, it’s stayed there away from public eyes and ears, but fortunately, it fits the exact vibe of the Proto Club!

Proto Club was established for this exact reason; we have tons of effects on our breadboards and programming suites that we can’t squeeze into the release schedule, things that don’t quite fit into our lineup, circuits with too niche of an audience, or “our versions” of beloved classics, direct to you stripped of frill. This lets us get a little more creative for all you effects freaks out there. Y’all are our people!

You wanted experimental? You got it! The Tritone features a call-and-response type octave-up that rides sidesaddle with a blendable perfect fifth. When coupled with an on-board slapback echo, this gives you the ability to seamlessly craft bursts of three-note arpeggios that can stand alone as a killer lead augmentation or can align with your rhythm parts to fill in the gaps with some interesting texture. Synth players? Please. The Tritone absolutely loves electronic instruments and takes them with ease. You can keep the action close to your chest with the addition of a wet-dry blend of the overall signal as well as one for the tritone. You can adjust the timing of the arpeggio as well as the echo feedback for some chaotic oscillation in certain settings.

Learn More Here!

The incident has left the guitarist facing an “arduous, slow, and painful” healing process

The pair traded licks after the release of Brothers in Arms, and went on to release an album together

Eddie Van Halen is pretty much regarded as one of the true innovators of shred guitar, but a recently unearthed interview from 1991 shows that Eddie had reservations about the discipline he’d spawned.

Speaking to Guitar Player journalist Jas Obrecht, the Van Halen guitarist admitted that he was well beyond his years of shredding. “A lot of people just do all kinds of crazy shit,” he said. “Sure, that’s fine and dandy when you’re young… playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me… To me, a solo is to highlight song. It’s not to show off.”

• READ MORE: The Gear Used on Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience

Later on in the interview, he even explained that he was embracing a slower, more deliberate approach to playing. “In the guitar polls, I’m not the number one cat anymore,” he admitted. “You know, there are faster gunslingers out there… what’s important to me now isn’t how fast I can solo. It’s the whole picture.”

That’s not to say shredding holds no place in metal. “I was like that back then [when I was younger],” he added. “But the whole band thing, the songs… that’s what’s important.”

Of course, Eddie added that this wasn’t an admission that he “can’t solo anymore”. The realisation was just something he came to learn as he grew up, as shredding seemed to often be a by-product of “big egos” and showing off.

“Big egos are very unhealthy,” he explained. “Everybody needs an ego, obviously, but when it starts getting in the way of the overall picture, you know – what a band is and what a band supposed to be doing – too much ego is bad news.”

Eddie distancing himself from shredding is something fans and peers alike noted in the legend’s later years. Toto’s Steve Lukather revealed that Eddie regretted adding fuel to the shredding fire in an interview with us back in 2021.

“There were the times when guitar players were trying to show what they had – each guy had something and they wanted to show it off,” he recalled. “It was healthy, no-one was trying to one-up anybody else, that came a little later in the 80s with all the intense Uber-shredding.”

“Ed was sitting there going, ‘I created a monster, fuck!’” he continued. “They misinterpreted what his musical intent was and turned guitar into more of a sport. I know that always bothered him.”

Lukather voiced a similar sentiment in 2023 while talking to Guitar World. “Eddie Van Halen came along and changed the whole game,” he said. “I remember him telling me once, ‘Man, I didn’t mean to start all this madness,’ but he really did change the entire game. That always cracked me up, as Eddie was the father of shred!”

The post “Playing as fast as you can doesn’t really hold much water for me”: Eddie Van Halen pours scorn on shredding in unheard 1991 interview appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.