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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…
The Electra Endorser
Flame-top guitars were fairly common during the 1970s “copy era,” but few reached the levels of figure we often see…
John 5 and the Creatures
The Horror
Making good music requires a stimulating muse or inspiration. For some it’s love, happiness, loss, or regret. For guitarist John…
Keeley Electronics’ D&M Drive
Tone Stacker
As the gear industry seeks to reach new segments, Robert Keeley has turned his attention from making products for road…
2021 August Issue on Spotify
This This month we feature Ray Benson’s Asleep at the Wheel, Neal Schon, Styx’s Tommy Shaw and James Young, Paul…
Tedeschi Trucks Band
All The Way Live
Live albums can be a remedy for contract disputes or a way to stall for time during a creative dry…
Gizmotron
Most Bizarre Guitar Effect of All Time?
Led Zeppelin’s final studio album, 1979’s In Through The Out Door, opens with an eerie, otherworldly drone that weaves and…
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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
Sebastian Nagel
Meditations in Funk
Germany’s Sebastian Nagel is a producer, composer, session guitarist, performer, and fan of the funk. His latest project finds him…
The ASIA Symposium
Kinship and Connections
As much a celebration of kinship as it is an educational forum, the biannual Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA)…
Joe Satriani
The Artist’s Way
Whether orchestrating guitar instrumentals, writing comic books, or bringing his imagination to the canvas with acrylic paint, Joe Satriani has…
Diamond Rio’s Jimmy Olander
Sworn Gunslinger
Grand Ole Opry member, CMA, ACM, and Grammy winner Jimmy Olander is one of the most-admired players in country music.…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Buddy Holly’s ’58 Magnatone 280
1958 Magnatone Custom 280
When guitarists talk tremolo or vibrato, you can bet the magnificent Magnatone amps will find their way into the conversation.…
Ibanez Tube Screamer
From the first notes of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood,” you can hear it loud and clear; that snarly tone…
Recording King Ray Whitley
As a maker of high-quality instruments, Gibson was hit hard by the onset of the Depression in the 1930s. Company…
Delta Labs Concept 1
Preamp tubes: Two 6U8A, two 12FQ7, in addition to more-common types Output tubes: eight 33JV6 horizontal-output tubes Rectifier: solidstate Controls:…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Fishman AFX Pedals
Tiny Tools
The shrinkologists at Fishman recently introduced a line of mini AFX pedals that do many jobs in an acoustic/electric guitar…
EarthQuaker Devices’ Erupter
Bring The Fuzz
EarthQuaker Devices is one of the most admired pedal builders today, thanks to their original designs that feature tweakable controls…
Fender Nile Rodgers Hitmaker Stratocaster
Good Times
Guitarists know Nile Rodgers as funkmaster general of Chic, but he looms even larger as a Grammy-winning producer whose skill…
Iconix Pickups Black Mass
Michigan Metal
Michigan may have given us the automobile production line, but Troy-based Iconix Pickups is the antithesis of an assembly line…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer
Tonk Brothers/Washburn 5241
From the late 1920s through the early ’40s, Gibson produced instruments under a variety of brand names for retailers like…
Fender’s 1957 Precision Bass
When an instrument maintains the same basic design and profile for more than a half-century, it’s safe to say that…
Classics: April 2023
Kim Simmons’ 1973 Gibson Les Paul
For Gio da Silva and several million others in Generation X, the mid ’90s were an exciting time. Young adults…
Boggs’ Quad
Four-neck Fender From a Friend
Noted in musical history as one of the players who pushed the steel guitar beyond Hawaiian music to more-complex chording…
