Michael Angelo Batio is one of the most prodigious guitarists on Earth. Since his stint with the rock band Holland in the ’80s, Batio has written his ticket with a combination of freakish talent and hard work. His current album, Intermezzo, is a note-intensive prog-metal rollercoaster that includes some similarly gifted guests like George Lynch, …

Fender’s first Spanish-style guitar was a lesson in functional simplicity with its solid body, single pickup, and bolt-on neck. And it didn’t receive a welcome fit for the legend it would become.

MXR SF01 Slash Octave Fuzz Price: $129 (street) Contact: www.jimdunlop.com Slash Cry Baby Classic SC95 Wah Price: $129 (street) Contact: www.jimdunlop.com MXR’s new Slash Octave Fuzz pedal employs three fuzz “flavors” – Sub-Octave, Fuzz, and Octave Up – that offer a palette of distinctive, utilizable sounds. The pedal, built with analog circuitry, true-bypass switching, and …

Musicvox Space Cadet 12 Price: $899 (direct) Contact: musicvox.com As you may have read in Michael Wright’s profile of the Spaceranger guitar (September ’11), Musicvox started producing kooky, retro-styled solidbody guitars in the ’90s and was prominently featured in the comedy film Austin Powers. The company was on hiatus for a decade and recently returned …

Preamp tubes: two 7025, two 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6BQ5/EL84 Rectifier: GZ34 Controls: Bright channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; Normal channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; tremolo Speed and Intensity for both channels Speakers: two 10″ Oxford 10K-5 ceramic speakers in a closed-back cabinet Output: approximately 35 watts RMS We tend to think the EL84 didn’t become a …

Yamaha THR10 Price: $299 Contact: usa.yamaha.com. As a rule of thumb, practice amps are a compromise. Blissfully portable, they typically lack tone and features. Yet whether in a bedroom or hotel room, a practice amp should help inspire an artist by making practice more pleasure than chore. Yamaha’s THR10 is a definite step in the …

Roland Cube Lite Price: $169 (street) Info: www.rolandus.com. At just under four pounds, and with a 10″ x 6″ footprint, the Roland Cube Lite is about as compact and lightweight as an amp can get while still being considered a real amp and not just another one of those gimmicky battery-operated units. The Cube Lite …

Nels Cline has quite the musical resumé, and yet has always been hard to pin down. Whether doing some form of fusion, manning the lead-guitar chair in Wilco, or serving up dissonance and sound in various solo projects, he never can be pigeonholed. Now, there’s this latest – a very ambitious project that, according to …

When Jimi Hendrix released his first album, 1967’s Are You Experienced, he launched a new level of guitar heroics as well as a sartorial fad for ruffled shirts and band jackets. He also fed a fashion for fuzz. One of Jimi’s main weapons was the Arbiter Fuzz Face, a cheap, crude fuzz box that would …

So what is it? Its original black-finished spruce top is simply ladder-braced from within, but its back and sides feature Brazilian rosewood with dramatic bookmatched figure. Its unbound 18-fret fingerboard –also of rosewood – sports only a few small, round dots for position makers, yet intricate multicolored wood purfling graces much of the rest of …

Lengardo Milano JBE Series Price: $4,254 Contact: www.JBEPickups.com Though a name unfamiliar to most, Lengardo is a brand of Phaselus, a manufacturer/distributor of guitars and music accessories in the European Union. Recently, the company partnered with JBE Pickups to produce a new line of guitars offered for the U.S. market. The Milano is its take …

Growing up in a small Kansas town, 38-year-old Aaron Moreland took up guitar at 15, and his first garage band played classic-rock throwbacks like “Tush” and “China Grove,” occasionally getting more contemporary with R.E.M. and the Black Crowes. By 2001, when he met singer/harpist Dustin Arbuckle at an open mic, he’d immersed himself in acoustic …

Calling any player “the hardest working guitarist in the business” is rather like referring to one as the “best guitarist” – do it, and you’re just asking for trouble. But if output equates to effort, there’s no doubt Joe Satriani works his as… err, fingers off! The rock shredder has been doing what he does …

If you grew up listening to music in the ’70s, you probably associate the name J. Geils with a five-piece band that played raucous rock and roll to hip-shaking partiers. Led by guitarist John “Jay” Geils, the group toured the world and recorded more than a dozen albums, selling millions through the early ’80s. Originally …

The highly publicized firing of singer Geoff Tate from the band Queensrÿche has divided fans and spawned two touring bands using the name; Tate assembled a group of well-known sidemen, while the remaining members recruited frontman Todd La Torre. Guitarist Michael Wilton’s version of Queensrÿche recently released a self-titled album that marks a return to …

Bob Shade exemplifies the adage “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The guitar builder has an enviable assortment of ’60s Hallmark guitars and basses, and they’ve inspired his own creations. Hallmark was founded by Joe Hall (1938-2011), a former Mosrite employee who in 1965 opened a shop in Arvin, California, just down the road …

“A spectacular model in real he-man outdoor Western finish with powerful appeal for Hill-billy and Cowboy bands.” This is how Gretsch first introduced the Rancher Jumbo – offspring of the 1940s Synchromatic models – in its 1955 catalog. The triangular (or “French”) sound hole has been seen on most Gretsch flat-top guitars from wartime to the …