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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…

Saucerful of Strats
Pink Floyd Catalog Gets a Massive Reissue
By any standard, Pink Floyd has one of the mightiest catalogs in rock and roll – a 14-album pantheon dating…

Walrus Audio’s Monument Harmonic Tap Tremolo
Delirious Tremors
At some point, nearly every guitarist realizes they simply can’t function without an effects pedal that creates warm, pulsating modulation.…

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 9
Late ’60s: Baldwin And Decline
In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled…

Tommy Shaw and James Young
Styx’s Crowning Achievement
“One thing I like about how Styx does progressive stuff is we try and make it friendly progressive, not math,”…

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan
In Session (Deluxe Edition)
Talk about a summit – this session was a Luke Skywalker-meets-Yoda moment. The live album, originally released in 1999, is…

Have Guitar Will Travel – 031 Featuring John Notto
The latest episode of “Have Guitar Will Travel” has host James Patrick Regan speaking with guitarist John Notto from Dirty…
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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,…
ARTISTS

The Supro Thunderbolt S6420
Lightning Strikes
Despite their catalog-grade status, Supro amps have been used by several noteworthy guitarists. For many, the sturdy Thunderbolt is the…

Pop ’N Hiss: Santana’s Caravanserai
Pageant of Enlightenment
By the summer of 1971, 24-year-old Carlos Santana and his band – Neal Schon on guitar, drummer Michael Shrieve, Gregg…

Javier Batiz
Mexican guitarist Javier Batiz, a teacher and inspiration to Carlos Santana and other musicians, passed away December 14 at his…

J.D. Simo
Psychedelia and Satan
Psychedelic bluesman J.D. Simo deploys impressive wah skill, blistering fuzz tones, and hypnotic grooves that will expand your consciousness. His…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

Dan’s Guitar RX: Rock-And-Roll High School(er)
Building a From-Scratch Class Project, the Conclusion
In my November ’22 column, Ceil Thompson’s class-project guitar was nearing completion – the lacquer coats were applied and, after…

Echoplex EP-2
Sam Phillips didn’t invent tape echo with his mid-’50s recordings of Elvis, but he just as well may have. So…

Classics: June 2023
Danny Gattons ’51 Nocaster
From learning a first lick to playing an entire song with friends, musicians thrive on motivations big and small. Growing…

The Duane Allman “Layla” Guitar?
A ’57 Gibson Les Paul Emerges To Tell a Story
Taken in trade by a music store in Florida, it was sold to a local recording studio in 1977. Shortly…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight

Relic the Hague’s Scumbag
Rock-and-Roll Animal
On the surface, the Scumbag is a simple rock beast. With a 25.5″-scale neck, maple fingerboard, and bolt-neck construction, it…

BBE Sonic Stomp Pro & Green Screamer V2
Maximized Tone
Contributing to a recent burst of creative releases in the effects market, BBE added a pair of stompboxes to its…

Rockn Stompn Sequential Power Strip
“Good” Power!
Power. Juice. Electricity. The brilliance of Ben Franklin, James Watt, and Nikola Tesla helped harness, if not tame, this vital…

API Audio TranZformer GT and LX
Stripped Down
Automated Processing Inc. (API) is best-known for its high-end mixing consoles for broadcast and recording, along with the mic preamps,…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer

Graham Clise
Bay Area Blaster
Graham Clise is one of the most-heralded underground rock guitarists of the past 15 years. A mashup of Chuck Berry,…

Walrus Audio’s Mako Series MKII
Walrus Audio’s Mako Series MKII bolster the sounds of their first-gen predecessors, using altered algorithms, new controls, and better tonal…

KJ Audio Hanwell 50
Shake The Walls
KJ Audio Hanwell 50 Price: Head $1,900; cabinet $1,600 Contact: www.kjaudio.com No apologies: Minneapolis-based amp designer Kristopher Johnson’s Hanwell 50…

Samantha Fish: Slide-Blues Fury!
“I’m Done Runnin’” on a D-18 VG readers know Samantha Fish is the real deal. Here, she uses a Martin…











































