•  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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Maxon Fuzz Elements Pedals

Maxon Fuzz Elements Pedals

Elemental Fuzz

Maxon Fuzz Elements Pedals Price: $189 to $199 Contact: www.maxonfx.com Classic fuzz pedals are some of the fine wines of the vintage guitar world. Guitarists talk like Frenchified sommeliers when…

Siegmund Midnight Special

Siegmund Midnight Special

Tried ’N True, Twisted

Siegmund Midnight Special Price: $1,895 (list, as tested) Contact: www.siegmundguitars.com Driven by a quest for preserving the original tonal qualities of a player’s instrument, builder Chris Siegmund created the Midnight…

B&G Guitars’ Caletta Standard Build

Small But Mighty

B&G Guitars are made in Tel Aviv by a talented shop that translates the best traits of traditional guitars into high-quality instruments for today’s player. With the Caletta, their aim…

Strymon Iridium Amp & IR Cab

Model Citizen

It can be tough, living in the golden age of gear tech. Which piece of amazing equipment to get next? Strymon’s Iridium might be worth a look. A stompbox-sized amp…

Legendary Tones Time Machine Boost

Built like a tank, but sings like a bird…

To call Legendary Tones’ Time Machine Boost “…a distortion pedal” would be to sell it extremely short. Designed for use with high-quality tube amps, the Time Machine’s purpose is to…

Tremcaster Single Ninety Home Feature Image

Tremcaster Single Ninety

Best of Both Worlds

Today’s guitar market is one of extreme preferences. For some, the idea of countless options and exotic woods and craftsmanship is the name of the game. For others, the tendency…

Ellis Guitars TX3

“T” For Texas

  Houston is the closest major U.S. port to the tropical hardwoods of South and Central America, so it makes sense that Ellis Guitars makes good use of them. Grabbing…

Maxon VS Effects

Five Boxes of Fun

With their straight-out-of- the-’70s groovy colors – pea soup green, bright orange, powder blue, plum purple, and Mopar metallic green – Maxon’s Vintage Series Effects look like new old stock,…

Ball Amps 1950s GE TV

Turn Up The Television

Randall Ball crafts vintage amps like no others. At his workshop in Kearneysville, West Virginia, he translates tried-and-true schematics into new builds, then houses them in old cabinets adapted from…

Bayou Guitarworks Hardware

Players often buy a factory aged guitar and swap the plastics and hardware to more accurately represent the overall aesthetic. Bayou Guitarworks’ custom relic’d hardware fits the bill. Artist Denise…

The Electro-Harmonix Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi

Smooth Successor

Electro-Harmonix Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi Price: $133 (list)/$99.75 (street). Contact: ehx.com. The Big Muff Pi overdrive is the effect stompbox that put Electro-Harmonix on the map, and in the…

Babicz Octave Blue Flame

Flaming Glory

When a vintage-minded guitarist recollects cracking open the case of a big ol’ hollowbody and catching a glimpse of flame, minds wander to dreams of Gibson ES-5 or Kay Jimmy…

Savage Audio Macht 12x

Sweeter Mids, Smoother Twang

The Savage Audio Macht 12x Savage Audio gained a solid reputation for its repair work before moving into amplifier production in 1990. Today, the company builds a full line of…

Durham Electronics’ ReddVerb

Durham Electronics’ ReddVerb

’Verb, Extra Saucy

Durham Electronics’ ReddVerb Price: $219 (list) Info: www.durhamelectronics.com Take it from Redd Volkaert; good reverb is hard to find. And that’s especially true if you’re gigging on the road and…

Brian Moore i2p

A modern guitar for the vintage fan

Brian Moore Guitars’ i2000 line of guitars offer some fantastic features and options, on instruments that have a unique feel and vibe while retaining certain vintage… uh… shall we say…

Dr Z Octal Six 1×12 combo

Valve Variation

Classic guitar amplifiers have made certain vacuum tubes household names (among gearheads) – 12AX7, 12AT7, 6L6, 6V6, EL84, and EL34. Working with various combinations of them along with carefully selected…

Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx

Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx

Atomic Wedgie

Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx Price: $149.99 Contact: http://www.samash.com. Guitarists who lived in New York City in the late ’60s might recall the Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx. Introduced in ’67 as…

Carvin’s AE185-12

Stairway to Heaven

Carvin’s AE185-12 Price: $1,239 (base retail) Info: www.carvinguitars.com. Most guitarists love the sound of a 12-string, but the thought of owning one often raises several questions. Should you get an…

Billionaire by Danelectro Big Spender

Rotary Club

In this day and age, there’s a lot of spin going down, but perhaps not enough of the right type. Enter the new Billionaire line of affordable effects from Danelectro,…

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 warriors who perform onstage to tone freaks who obsess about…

Breedlove Pursuit Exotic S Concert Amber 12-String CE

Tonal Transcendence

In 1990, Steve Henderson and Larry Breedlove quit their day jobs at Taylor Guitars and moved to Oregon, where they set to work building their own. Through the decades, they…

Misa Kitara

Axe of the Future?

Misa Kitara Price: $789 Info: www.misadigital.com. The guitar synthesizer has been around for more than 30 years and made significant inroads to contemporary music, thanks to fusion heroes like Pat…

Tech 21 Trademark 60 and Bronzewood 60

60-Watt Combos to Go!

Tech 21 Trademark 60. Tech 21 has long been the purveyor of cool solidstate gear that replicates the sound of tube amps, like the famed SansAmp pedals and their wide…

Lotus Pedal Designs’ Snowjob Underdrive

Lotus Pedal Designs’ Snowjob Underdrive

Love That Yellow Snow

You may be wondering, “What in the world is an ‘underdrive’ pedal?” Good question. Well, you know the traffic-jam of overdrive pedals you likely have crowding around your amp, all…

Fender G.E. Smith Telecaster

G.E.'s Electric

G.E. Smith is a guitarist, vintage-instrument authority, and holder of several past high-profile gig including 10 years as the bandleader on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” where he proudly displayed pieces…

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ToneConcepts’ The Distillery

100-Proof Tone

While many pedal makers tinker away on effects that exhibit their personal tonal philosophies, the fact is that most don’t play gigs or compose music. Seraphim Marcopoulous of ToneConcepts was…

Fender PM-2

Sitting-Room Savoir Faire

Once wildly popular among everyone from drawing-room dilettantes to road-hardened bluesmen shuffling the dusty byways, parlor-sized guitars fell out of favor mid-century when popular ensembles demanded the volume better provided…

IK Multimedia iRig HD

Pocket Rocket

Ain’t technology grand? With a device like the iRig HD, you can plug your guitar into an iPhone, iPad, or a computer and rock out with shockingly good sounds. The…

Reverend Mike Watt Wattplower

During four years of back and forth, Reverend Guitars and legendary punk-rock bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehose, Stooges), developed a partnership that ultimately produced the Wattplower signature bass. The Wattplower…

Zemaitis GZ-3200DF

One For the Rest of Us

Looking to score one of those legendary guitars made by the late British luthier Tony Zemaitis? Yeah, so are we. But given that Tony’s work today occupies its own unique…