•  Reverend Sensei H90

    VG Approved Gear

     Reverend Sensei H90

    Live Wire

    So you want a Gibson-style solidbody that can cover humbucker-powered rock, yet also twangier/glassier tones using a P-90 pickup. Check. You also want to grab high frets via double-cutaway and have the pitch reliability of a tune-o-matic bridge and locking tuners. Got it. One more thing: it’s got to look cool and old-school. Hmm…. sounds

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BC Audio Amplifier No. 10 Mk. II

BC Audio Amplifier No. 10 Mk. II

Big-Tone City

BC Audio Amplifier No. 10 Mk. II Price: $2,495 (list) Contact: www.bcaudio.com Bruce Clement is known for his quality amp work, including models housed in military ammo cans. One of…

Lollar’s Gold-Foil Pickup

After the Gold Rush

Lollar’s Gold-Foil Pickup Price: $180 (list, each) Info: www.lollarguitars.com Gold-foil pickups are exotic beasts – just like many of the 1960s Japanese-made Teisco guitars that sport up to four of…

Melancon Custom Artist/P-90 Artist

Attention to Detail

Hailing from Louisiana, Gerard Melancon is a former professional gigging and studio player who parlayed experience on the road and as a guitar repairman into a devout attitude toward building…

Breedlove C25 and Custom XII

Beauty, brains, and brawn

Breedlove Guitar Company is a small, independent gui-tar and mandolin builder in Oregon’s high desert region east of the Cascade Mountains. Started in 1990 by Steve Henderson and Larry Breedlove,…

Tone Tubby 4×12

Sweet, full tones from funky hemp cones

Northern California’s A Brown Soun has been repairing speakers for nearly 30 years. Founded in 1974 by John Harrison, the company was named after the way Harrison “sees” sounds –…

Crazy Tube Circuits SPT

Greece Is The Word

The modal mellowness of Apollo’s lyre or the perky chirp of the bouzouki might come to mind when one thinks of Greek music. But Crazy Tube Circuits? From the Athens…

Paul Hartmann Stormy Monday

Travel Tunes

The typical “travel guitar” is a small, budget-minded instrument that offers varying levels of construction and quality, often forcing compromise in playability and usefulness. Luthier Paul Hartmann takes a different…

Danelectro ’84

Love Struck

The Danelectro name first surfaced on amplifiers in the late 1940s, then later on guitars made with Masonite bodies and lipstick-tube pickups, along with electric sitars, baritone guitars, and “Longhorn”…

Donner DST-400

Seeing Green

If the pandemic had a silver lining beyond more time at home with our toys, it was the growth of our hobby, witnessed by the spike in gear sales and…

Keeley Electronics Dark Side

Floyd Fare

In the multi-verse of effects pedals, Robert Keeley’s compressors, dirt boxes, and workstation gizmos are a thing of beauty – particularly in the realm of pedals that provide multiple sounds.…

The Electro-Harmonix Superego Synth Engine

Synthful

Electro-Harmonix Superego Synth Engine Price: $283.60 (retail); $212.70 (street) Contact: www.ehx.com Building on the success of its Freeze Sound Retainer (a.k.a. the world’s shortest looper), the Electro-Harmonix Superego Synth Engine…

Collings Julian Lage OM1 JL

Great Expectations

The late Bill Collings and his craftsmen are renowned for their beautiful-sounding guitars. It’s apt they’ve connected with a beautiful-sounding guitarist: jazzer Julian Lage, a rising musician known for his…

ZT Extortion Expressive Distortion

Mutant Distortion

ZT Amplifiers put their name on the map four years ago with the compact Lunchbox solid-state amp. Now they continue along the road less traveled with the Extortion Expressive Distortion.…

The Pickaso Guitar Bow

Fiddle Stick 

Ever since Jimmy Page grabbed a bow for “Dazed and Confused,” players have tried to bridge the gap between guitars and their fretless counterparts. To that end, Pickaso introduced the…

Swart Atomic Jr.

Splitting The Atom

When Swart decided to split their Atomic Jr. five-watt combo into a piggyback, they not only went from an 8″ speaker to a 12″, they added more speaker options, including…

Epiphone USA Coronet

Simple Screamer

Single-pickup guitars are flat-out cool: think Leslie West, Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders, Steve Marriott, Johnny Marr, and Jimi Hendrix. Once fluffed off as a one-trick pony or a kid’s guitar,…

Danelectro Dano Minis

More tasty treats

Danelectro has been busy churning out yet another set of pedals that are inex-pensive and quite small. A good thing, since one can never have too many pedals. These are,…

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 has helped sell more than 500 million albums. Fender’s Artist…

Epiphone Zenith Fretted and Fretless Bass

New Groove Territory

For decades, guitar players have known the name Epiphone. Renowned for making great-sounding jazz boxes like the Zephyr and Emperor Regent, which have been seen in the hands of major…

AJ Peat Screaming Flamingo, Wild Goose, Dirty Buzzard

Birds Are the Word

AJ Peat is in the business of creating some of the hippest music gear on the planet. Boutique guitars, pedals, and audio devices all bare his thumbprint, and his take…

Bray Coco 50

Feelin’ Brown

Eddie Van Halen’s “brown sound” is, for many players, the Holy Grail of guitar tone. Featured on his band’s 1978, debut album, it continues to captivate listeners and amp builders,…

PureSalem Honey Bunny, Pink Beard, Attack Captain

Bring The Fuzz

Remember your first fuzz pedal? Maybe, like a certain reviewer, you literally worked up a sweat trying to strike a deal between the body resonance of an ES-175D and the…

The DryBell Vibe Machine V-2

Catch A Wave

DryBell is renowned for one of the most authentic and pedalboard-friendly Uni-Vibe recreations on the market. Five years after launching their original Vibe Machine, the fine folks at DryBell have…

Bogner Oxford Fuzz

Highly Educational

Teaming with Rupert Neve, Bogner Amplification has developed a line of pedals based on its renowned amp channels. One result, the Oxford Fuzz, is a smooth and highly refined fuzz…

Effectrode Tube-Vibe and Goran Fat Boy

Premium Pedalin’

Effectrode Tube-Vibe Price: $429 (Tube-Vibe) Contact: www.effectrode.com Goran Fat Boy Price: $429 Contact: www.goranguitars.com In the annals of guitar stompboxes, there are no tones more elusive than the mystical swirls…

The Dr. Z CAZ-45

Prescription Filled

When word got out in early 2020 that Mike Zaite and Alan Phillips (founder of Carol-Ann Amplifiers) were collaborating on a high-gain amp, the buzz was intense. After several prototypes…

Gibson 1928 L-1 Blues Tribute

Blues Time Machine

Gibson 1928 L-1 Blues Tribute Price: $4,255 retail; $3,299 street Info: www.gibson.com. The Gibson L-1 boasts the kind of intriguing history that makes it a legend. In the late 1920s,…

Carr Bloke

Carr Bloke

No Regular Fella

From early models such as the Carr Slant 6V and the Rambler to more recent offerings such as the Artemus and Sportsman, North Carolina-based builder Steve Carr creates impressive tube…

Jensen Tornado Stealth Speakers

Sheer Magnetism

Jensen has been in the speaker game for a very long time and its wares are some of the most sought-after vintage drivers. The company’s new 12″ Tornado Stealth series…

Ceriatone’s OTS Mini 20 Overtone Lunchbox

Meal Ticket

For years, Ceriatone fans have suggested the amp maker offer its stellar Overtone Special sound in a scaled-down, affordable package. The OTS Mini 20 was Ceriatone’s answer. The control layout…