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Super PickupGiveaway 2025
Win Big! 11 Sets! 11 Winners! Win a set of pickups from one of these sponsors: Deadline is March 15, 2026. Complete the survey below to enter giveaway. One entry…
National Dueco
Still Resonating
Blues man Charlie Parr recently philosophized in VG that National resonator guitars are as much mechanical creation as musical instrument,…
Ibanez M522S
F-Style For Less
Thanks to acts such as the Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, and the Punch Brothers, the mandolin is suddenly hip…
Pop ’N Hiss: Be Bop Deluxe’s Live! In the Air Age
Atmospheric Axes
For a shining moment, the eclectic British quartet Be Bop Deluxe rose above an upheaval in rock and pop in…
The PRS HX 50 and HX 2×12 Cabinet
Jimi Jam
Paul Reed Smith has earned a reputation building guitars of the highest quality. It wasn’t until just over a decade…
Producer Dave Cobb Draws Artists of All Ilks
Music-City tune Charmer
Grandson of a Pentecostal minister, as a kid, Dave Cobb attended church every day, weaving old-time hymnal music into his…
Pink Floyd in North America 1966-1983
Glenn Povey
David Gilmour playing a rare Stratocaster doubleneck? You’ll see that 1972 photo and others in this reference book documenting Floyd’s…
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Rickenbacker’s Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality,…
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ARTISTS
Joe Satriani
Capturing the Energy
Joe Satriani’s new album, What Happens Next, is a terrific back-to-basics effort with Satch in a trio format. Enlisting Red…
Brian Tarquin
No Idle Hands
Brian Tarquin is more than keeping busy. In the space of six weeks, he recently released two very different instrumental…
VG Q&A: A Gilded ’63 Jazz Bass
Plus, Swappable Pickups, Bartell Guitars, and a Mystery Lap Steel
I am the third owner of a 1963 Jazz Bass with a neck stamp “7Jan63A,” pots dated that May, and…
Philip Sayce
Scorched-Earth Tones
Philip Sayce’s album Scorched Earth Volume 1 was a live recording from 2016 that displayed the kind of blistering blues-rock…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Prototypes and Pathfinders
Five Amps That Set the Tone – Or Hoped To
Groundbreaking and undeniably collectible guitar amplifiers have made frequent appearances in this space over the years, but so have prototypes,…
1985 Guild Nightbird Prototype
In early 1984, Mark Dronge, son of the Guild founder Alfred Dronge, was president of Guild. That year, Mark and…
The Real Story of Martin’s 14-Fret Orchestra Models
OM Irony
Martin Orchestra Model (OM) guitars made prior to World War II are some of the finest ever made for fingerpicking.…
Built to Survive
Gibson and Montgomery Ward in the Great Depression
In our nation’s darkest economic times, one of its most-revered guitar manufacturers was treading headlong toward extinction before an unlikely…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Heritage Guitars’ H-157W
Turnkey Head-Turner
In 1985, Heritage Guitars took over a certain factory space at 225 Parsons Street in Kalamazoo, Michigan, after the former…
ZVEX Woolly Mammoth 7
Fuzzy Beast
Zachary Vex masterminds some of the most radical and downright fun pedals known to mankind. And as he states in…
Andy Green Pedals’ Seaverb
Endless Reverb
Andy Green offers “basic building blocks” of tone – a concise lineup of effects including distortion, overdrive, fuzz, and reverb.…
Fender Acoustasonic Player Telecaster
Well-Bred Hybrid
The truth? Hybrid guitars are a tall order. But with the Acoustasonic line – now five models strong – Fender’s…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer
Joanna Connor
Blue-Collar Virtuoso
Joanna Connor’s latest is her most-potent album to date. Best Of Me serves up a feast of guitar styles and…
Dan’s Guitar RX: Doubleneck Redux, Part 2
Full House: Transcendent Jazz Masterpiece
In the November issue, we started to refurbish a doubleneck mandolin/guitar I made for Jerry Schafer in 1977. It needed…
EHX Spruce Goose OD
Blues-breakers Bump
Known and loved for its smooth breakup and sensitivity, Marshall’s Bluesbreaker circuit is a legend unto itself. The Spruce Goose…
Instro-Meister Eric Penna
Blues Switch-Up in Trabants Eric Penna’s main gig is playing bass for the garage/surf band Insect Surfers, but he side-hustles…
