Содержание выпуска: December 2021 — Guitarist

Matt Bellamy of post-rock superstars Muse has enjoyed a long partnership with Devon-based Manson Guitar Works, and has held the majority share in the company since 2019. Now the first Manson guitar that made history in Matt’s hands has been reproduced with obsessive care in ultra-high-end replica form. Matt famously used a custom DL-1 single-cut, originally built by Hugh Manson, during launch gigs for Muse’s Origin Of Symmetry album back in 2001. The original guitar took styling cues from a DeLorean sports car, as seen in the movie Back To The Future, (hence ‘DL’) and featured in-built Zvex Fuzz Factory and MXR Phase 90 effects, plus custom electronics by Ron Joyce. The time-travelling reference is even more apt today, as Manson Guitar Works completes a painstaking three-year project to replicate…

GUILD BOB MARLEY £359 Guild has unveiled a tribute model for none other than reggae legend Bob Marley. The A-20 Marley is based on the Guild Madeira A-20 acoustic, which Bob used to write many of his hits. It’s a dreadnought-style body, fitted with a solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides. The neck is also mahogany, fitted with a pau ferro fingerboard with a 648mm (25.5-inch) scale length and, in keeping with Bob’s 70s Guilds, features a flat, round-cornered headstock and period-correct Guild logo. There’s a Marley script inlay at the 12th fret, plus Bob’s signature on the scratchplate. Meanwhile, inside the included deluxe gigbag there’s a booklet containing the history of Bob’s guitar, three custom picks and an exclusive poster of Bob with his Guild. www.guildguitars.com RAPIER…

It’s become a cliché that guitarists don’t ‘do’ progress. Certainly, there’s no denying that battered Tweed amps and old Les Pauls are magical things – and there’s a reason they’re still benchmarks for a certain kind of tone and a certain kind of player. But, as we emerge slowly from the pandemic, there are signs that a genuine renaissance in guitar design is happening – and that it’s being driven by player demand. The pandemic has played a role in that. Prior to the world locking down for a year, webcasting and using social media as the main outlet for your music was just a rising trend. Now it feels central. Other norms are crumbling, too. It used to be that only flawlessly black ebony passed muster on a fingerboard,…

When we started working on this issue’s theme of progressive gear design it so happened that Tim Mills, founder of Bare Knuckle Pickups, released one of the most interesting humbuckers we’ve seen in a while. Designed as the signature pickup set of renowned producer and guitarist Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood, both the concept and execution of the resulting Polymath humbucker set goes deeper than is first apparent. Ordinarily, Tim likes to listen to what an artist wants and then lets them pick their favourite of several prototypes in a blind listening session, conducted face to face. But thanks to lockdown, the Polymath set couldn’t be done that way. Instead, Tim relied on his experience and Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood’s exacting feedback via email to get the job done. Trouble was, Adam wanted…

For many people, Sweden is the home of thoughtful, elegant design. From vintage Saab cars to furniture from flatpack-icon IKEA, the signature style of Swedish manufacturing is a purposeful minimalism where sleek looks combine with high-level functionality. And so it proves with .strandberg guitars, too. Based in the city of Uppsala, near Stockholm, the company is the brainchild of Ola Strandberg, who was kind enough to join us for a chat about the guitars he’s been building and refining since the early 80s. Why did you adopt a non-traditional, headless design for .strandberg guitars? “It started as a hobby. I built guitars in my teens and had not looked at a guitar for almost 15 years. I was kind of shocked after those 15 years when I decided to make…

PRICE: £949 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Indonesia TYPE: Analogue preamp and A/B Class analogue power amplifier OUTPUT: 75W DIMENSIONS: 265 (h) x 325 (w) x 245mm (d) WEIGHT (kg/lb): 7.5/16.5 CABINET: Plywood LOUDSPEAKER: Custom 8” twin cone, full range CHANNELS: 2 mic/line on each CONTROLS: Channel 1: mic/line switch, gain, tone switch (treble boost), bass, middle, treble. Channel 2: mic/line switch, gain, high pass filter, bass, middle, treble. Both channels: effects pan, FX level, master volume ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Built-in effects: Long Reverb, Short Reverb, Chorus, Custom Delay, My Delay and Tap n’ Delay, Headphone output, 2x line out (1: lower level for soundcards, etc; 2: mixing consoles), 2x DI out (balanced XLR for both channels), footswitch (not provided), aux in OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: None as yet PROS A familiar face…

New York-based Pigtronix has been around since 2004, but was acquired in 2020 by Bond Audio, giving access to design resources as well as international distribution. This seems to have resulted in an uptick in pedal releases, including this trio of space-themed offerings announced back in January. Whether you call these pedals micro or mini, the space-saving format offers offset input and output jacks, and power from a standard nine-volt DC supply rather than a battery. Substantially built, each pedal packs in plenty of control action (four knobs and up to three buttons/switches) into a small footprint without it feeling cluttered or fiddly. The Moon Pool tremolo/phaser and Constellator analogue delay are capable of the esoteric but can also deliver more conventional sounds, while the Space Rip synth pedal is…

The roots of British amp giant Orange can be traced back to the West End of London where, in 1968, company founder Cliff Cooper opened up a small secondhand instrument store called the Orange Shop. Having painted the shopfront a dazzling psychedelic orange colour, Cliff’s new enterprise certainly caught the eye of passing guitar shoppers as they perused the wares of Soho and Tin Pan Alley. “Guys like Marc Bolan, Gary Moore and Paul Kossoff would sit in the shop chatting and jamming all day long,” Cliff told us. “It was part of the whole thing that was happening. They’d come in, take a guitar off the wall and plug in.” One such patron of the Orange Shop was a young Peter Green whose stellar guitar playing in his band…

Inspired by the tone he gleaned from a vintage Gibson PAF humbucker, Mark Stow began winding his own pickups under the name OX4. Since then, it seems the guitar world can’t get enough of his hand-wound creations. And with some of the industry’s leading names onboard – including Paul Stacey, Larry Carlton and Jason Isbell – OX4 pickups have become increasingly in demand. “I’m just doing my own take on a good PAF,” Mark tells us. “It was a 1957 PAF I owned and played – so possibly from a Goldtop or ES-175 – that sounded particularly nice. I reverse-engineered it by winding the bobbins to match the ohms/ resistance and tonal characteristics. The magnets were measured using a gauss meter and my magnet supplier replicated that using Alnico IV.…

FENDER AMERICAN PERFORMER TELECASTER HUM £1,049 This oddly named model takes the standard Performer Tele and replaces its neck single coil with a covered DoubleTap humbucker that offers a single-coil mode, widening the tonal scope significantly. Tradition and modernity are balanced elsewhere between the three-brass-saddle bridge design and Fender’s ClassicGear tuners – that look and perform superbly. www.fender.com EASTMAN SB55/V £1,239 Hugely vintage informed with a characterful Antique Varnish finish, this SB55/v is probably the closest you’ll get to the real thing for a fraction of the price. The vibe is spot on and the weight from the okoume build is perfect. The boutique-style hardware from Faber and the Lollar dog-ear P-90 elevate it above the asking price. A well-informed tribute to a classic. www.eastmanguitars.com VOX BOBCAT S66 BIGSBY £1,399…

In the online age, Promenade Music in Morecambe is heartening evidence that the bricks-and-mortar guitar shop still plays a vital role. Founded in 1989 by the charismatic David Wood, you’ll find everything here from flagship solidbody electrics to arguably the best selection of connoisseur acoustics in Europe. But, as Wood reminds us, his beloved shop is about more than stock levels and SKUs, with Promenade representing a pillar of the local community. What’s the focus of Promenade Music? “Our main focus is to represent each kind of guitar well… We’re a destination store”DAVID WOOD, FOUNDER “The main focus is to represent each kind of guitar well. So in the solidbody electric stuff, we’re very good at things like PRS, Guild and Fender. We have a big bass department, probably 100…

One of the UK’s longest-established amp builders, Laney has a history that goes all the way back to 1967, when founder Lyndon Laney needed an amp and decided to try his hand at building one. Lyndon played bass in a West Midlands group called Band Of Joy, which briefly included Robert Plant and John Bonham. Plant and Bonham went on to greater things, while Laney’s amplification designs were winning fans of their own. Faced with a choice of going to university or carrying on with electronics, Laney decided to give amps a try for a few years – and over four decades later, he’s still there. Today, the Laney catalogue covers every angle, from hand-wired recreations of the classic 1960s heads and combos that powered the massively influential West Midlands…

The perfectly fitting and recessed tortie backplate (with foil shield) sits over the small control cavity, which is also shielded with conductive black paint. Inside, the immaculate wiring looks like it was perfectly done back in the 50s: that cloth-covered wire and the old-style Russian BM-2 .047 microfarads paper-in-oil capacitor all add to the illusion. They’re joined by a 500k audio Emerson Pro volume pot (which measures 508kohms) and a switched tone pot (measured at 535k), wired vintage-style. The ‘blower’ switch on the tone control takes the pickup directly to the output jack, bypassing the volume and tone controls, and, while it’s not huge, you can easily hear the treble lift. The Mojo P90 Dogear itself measures in at 8.35kohms (slightly overwound according to Mojo specs) at output and uses…

STAR LETTER TONE CONNECTION In your Bought & Sold articles, I’ve been struck by the answers to the question: 'Would you rather buy a really good guitar and a cheap amp or a cheap guitar and a really top-notch amp?' I used to think the answer was fairly obvious: given a finite budget, you would get the best return on investment (sonically speaking) if you put your money towards an amp. A cheaper but well-set-up Squier Strat, paired with a decent valve amp would sound better than a high-end equivalent going into a soulless solid-state amps that many of us had to make do with. Leaving aside golden-era US guitars, where a ‘student’ instrument was often a stripped-down version of the ‘pro’ model, the quality of mass-produced budget guitars and…

VOX BOBCAT S66 £1,279 Vox’s Bobcat S66 has all the glamour of the Italian-designed 60s original with upgraded hardware and electronics to meet modern demands. Vox has reproduced the knurled aluminium knobs, the vertical headstock logo and matched the original plastic hue, adding tons of retro cool. Meanwhile, the revoiced pickups add tonal depth and complexity. www.voxamps.com .STRANDBERG BODEN STANDARD 7 £1,599 The .strandberg’s striking looks are certainly an attention-grabber, but there’s serious design at work here and the legendary playability has won .strandberg many dedicated fans all over the world. The fan-fret multi-scale headless neck, custom bridge and pickups combine with the ergonomically balanced body for a unique playing experience. www.strandbergguitars.com TRINITY BY RELISH £1,599 The guitar equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, the Relish is a high-quality instrument…

GORDON SMITH GATSBY FROM £1,299 Taking things in a different direction, the Gatsby is Gordon Smith’s first offset guitar. The relatively small body is chamfered front and rear, while the neck fits like a glove, with butter-like playability. A long list of options means you can have your Gatsby the way you like it, too, creating a unique tool to enhance your music. Read the full review on page 10. www.gordonsmithguitars.com IBANEZ AZ2402 PRESTIGE FROM £1,989 The Japanese-crafted AZ2402 packs a full two-octave maple and wenge Super Wizard neck with stainless-steel jumbo frets on the roasted maple fretboard. Titanium bridge saddles and Seymour Duncan Hyperion humbuckers connected to a Dyna-MIX10 switching system ensure this guitar sounds absolutely stellar in the right hands. www.ibanez.com FENDER AMERICAN ULTRA STRATOCASTER £2,049 Fender’s upgrade…

GIBSON GENERATION G-45 £1,099 Taking its cue from Gibson’s famous ‘workhorse’ J-45, the G-45 has a regular soundhole plus a second ‘player port’ on the top shoulder of the bass bout to let the player hear their guitar closer to the way an audience would, with unmasked treble and increased volume. Together with the Advanced Response neck profile, the G-45 is a real player’s instrument. www.gibson.com TAYLOR GT URBAN ASH £1,299 Taylor’s GT stands for ‘Grand Theater’, a new mid-size scale length that’s about halfway between a full-size acoustic and a travel guitar. With reclaimed-ash back and sides sourced from felled urban trees, it’s a positive environmental move from Taylor, plus there’s all the build quality and fretting at which the company excels. Ideal for fingerpickers in all styles. www.taylorguitars.com…

Mike Rutherford is usually to be found playing a Lace Sensor-equipped Strat like the one pictured above. But recently the prog legend has taken to playing guitars from the other end of Fender’s price range – the humble Squier Bullet Strat – and he does so in front of thousands of Genesis fans. So, how has this entry-level Strat managed to convert a seasoned pro such as Rutherford? After all, he could play virtually any Stratocaster he wanted.We spoke to his guitar tech, Steve Prior (who is currently out on the road with Queen’s Roger Taylor following the postponement of ‘The Last Domino?’ tour dates) to find out. “The Squier Bullet Stratocaster is his favourite at the moment, it really is,” says Steve,“and I’ve just bought him a couple of…

The bridge pickup is girthsome and powerful, while the neck unit is a little more rootsy sounding Removing the 3mm thick aluminium backplate, which also holds the output jack, you might expect to see a modernist circuit board. But no, things here are pretty conventional. The cavity itself has copper foil lining and we basically have two 500k CTS pots and a Schaller Megaswitch (M) five-way lever pickup selector. The tone capacitor is a standard Mylar .022 microfarads (2A223), while the treble bleed circuit uses a 680 picofarads (681) capacitor in parallel with a 150kohms resistor. Suhr’s pickups are well renowned and both here – Suhr SSH+ at the bridge and SSV in the neck position – are SS (as in ‘single screw’) open-coiled humbuckers. The SSH+ has a measured…

It’s always interesting to talk to the designer of a piece of new gear. Often, their perspective is very different to the musician in whose hands the gear will end up. As a general rule, guitarists have little or no idea about what goes on under the hood of an effects pedal or amplifier. Their assessment is merely based upon whether it sounds good or not. As you can tell from the review on the preceding pages, we were really quite enamoured with the Da Capo 75 and were eager to hear about its origins. After all, this was the man who brought us the Compact 60, an amp that has become pretty much standard issue among acoustic players. So we were very curious about what Udo found on his…

Pedals from Spanish companies tend to go under the radar in the UK for some reason, although we do get to see them occasionally – the Aclam Dr Robert (reviewed back in issue 453) being one such example. This issue, we have the Massive Unity 10th Anniversary Danny Gomez signature TAE pedal on review, designed by its namesake, a highly experienced session musician and designer, as well as a massive Brian May aficionado. As for the rest of the name – TAE stands for Tube Amp Emulator and the pedal commemorates 10 years of the original Danny Gomez design, as seen in a pedal made by another Spanish company, Thunder Tomate. The TAE is basically a preamp pedal that takes its inspiration from Vox amp tone, but it has a…

“What might’ve been a piece of history is not in particularly original condition” It’s just over 20 years ago that the British guitar industry lost one its most talented craftsmen – Sid Poole. In not much more than a decade, Sid turned from hopeful into high-level, with his instruments crafted at his small garage in Kent, his wardrobe-sized spray booth in the well-tended back garden. By the end of his cut-short career his clients included Pete Townshend, Andy Fairweather Low, Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Geoff Whitehorn and Phil Hilborne, not to mention Barry Martin of the hard-gigging Hamsters. His work stretched well beyond these shores with plaudits from the likes of Paul Reed Smith and tech-guru Dan Erlewine, plus customers in Europe and Asia. Getting to know Sid back in…

EPIPHONE CORONET £349 A real contender for the ‘coolest-looking guitar’ award, Epiphone’s reissued Coronet packs a single bridge P-90 Pro for brilliantly ballsy tones. It boasts a mahogany body and neck, and Indian Laurel fingerboard, with an intonation compensated ‘Lightning Bar’ bridge/tailpiece. An appealing symmetrical design that’s fabulous value for money. www.epiphone.com G&L TRIBUTE ASAT SPECIAL FROM £399 As per the Telecaster, the ASAT was originally branded the Broadcaster upon its release in ’85. Available in a choice of three finishes including Gloss Black, Surf Green and Irish Ale, this under-the-radar Leo Fender-designed modern classic features a pair of wide/flat G&L MFD single coils similar in character to Jazzmaster and P-90 pickups. www.glguitars.com RAPIER 33 £429 JHS and Alan Entwistle have revived the Watkins Rapier model from the early 60s…

Richard Cholerton is the founder of Richards Guitars, a Stratfordupon-Avon based guitar store with a fiercely independent spirit. While the store stocks a range of familiar brands, the heart of the business lies in offering high-quality guitars sourced from Britain and Europe, including Gordon Smith electrics and Dowina acoustics – hand-built instruments that offer uncompromising quality without a baked-in premium on the price tag that major brands might command. Unafraid to call it as he sees it, Richard encourages customers to keep an open mind and do plenty of research before committing to a guitar. He also dislikes heavy-handed marketing, feeling that the proof of a guitar is in the playing, rather than the hype or the name on the headstock. We caught up with Richard to hear his seasoned…

VIGIER G.V. HOLLOW £3,459 Patrice Vigier and his team have been making exceptional guitars for a considerable number of years – and this G.V. Hollow might well be their finest to date. Despite its modernist features, it actually feels more like an old violin: perfectly shaped and weighted with nothing that gets in the way of its purpose. A guitar for the serious player with superb playability. www.vigierguitars.com PRS MCCARTY £3,499 PRS’s original ‘vintage’ vision is updated to offer a very grown-up appeal, with effortless playability. It also illustrates how far PRS has come over the past 26 years with a raft of seemingly small tweaks – unplated hardware, TCI tuned 58/15LT pickups and a new nitro-over-cellulose finish – that all add up to a superior and stellar guitar. www.prsguitars.com…

Reflecting what is a very straightforward guitar, we have a simple circuit with no tricks. Both volume controls are 250k Alpha audio taper whereas many would use 500k pots with a P-90-style single coil. Along with the chromed brass covers of the pickups, this may account for the slightly rounded high-end we hear. There’s a small ceramic 270 picofarads treble bleed cap on the volume and a green .022 microfarads polyester film tone cap – you see these in countless Asian builds. The cavity is shielded with conductive paint, and the backplate has a foil shield, too. The ceramic-loaded pickups are made in-house and are designed as a matched pair, although their DCR readings are quite different: 9.61kohms at the bridge and 5.46k at the neck. “Your bridge pickup sounds…

PRICE: £1,049 ORIGIN: UK TYPE: Valve preamp, parallel single-ended valve power amp OUTPUT: 20W VALVES: 3x 12AX7, 4x EL84 DIMENSIONS: 465 (h) x 565 (w) x 255mm (d) WEIGHT (kg/lb): 24.5/54 CABINET: Birch ply LOUDSPEAKERS: 1x Celestion G12H-30 12” CHANNELS: 2 CONTROLS: Clean volume, drive gain, drive volume, bass, mid, treble, reverb level, master tone, Bright on/off, Drive on/off ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Built-in digital reverb, series effects loop with switchable levels and bypass FOOTSWITCH: 2-button footswitch (supplied) toggles drive and reverb OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: L20H head version sells for £799. There’s also a L5T-112 combo (£849), L5 Studio head (£649) and L20T-212 combo (£1,299). A matching 1x12 extension cabinet costs £399; the 2x12 version costs £599 Laney Amplification 0121 508 6666 www.laney.co.uk PROS Footswitchable drive and digital reverb expand this…

The Beatles Let It Be UMG The Fab’s most contentious album receives its puff of fairy dust For many people, Let It Be is the runt of The Beatles’ otherwise brilliant litter. Little more than a failed experiment to write and record a new studio album in a month –January 1969, to be precise – under the unforgiving eye of a camera crew. The resulting film, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, made matters considerably worse by documenting a band on the verge of breaking up with John, Paul, George and Ringo filmed arguing in the studio and an air of general dissent prevailing throughout. Meanwhile, the finished recording was handed to Phil Spector who somewhat controversially added orchestration to tracks such as The Long And Winding Road, amid what have been…

What? Victory V4 ‘The Duchess’ Where seen? Andertons, Guildford Price? £699 A close contender for my new ’board, the pedal version of the superb V40 head boasts an all-valve preamp into a 180-watt solid-state power amp, so you can use a backline speaker cab instead of a hefty combo/stack. There’s onboard reverb and tremolo, plus the facility to run it directly to your PA or recording console. Featuring three-band EQ, tremolo depth and speed plus reverb control, there’s also an effects loop and footswitch jack for the tremolo. A super option if you fancy reducing your backline, require a simple recording solution, or need to placate volume-averse sound engineers.…

Laney L5-Studio head £519 Designed with home recording in mind, the tone-rich little L5 head has a raft of features to make getting tone down on tape easy – from a single-ended Class A power stage for easy access to responsive, blooming tone to Laney’s T-USB output allowing direct recording to a DAW. Boutique-grade tone in a flexible, studio-ready package that doesn’t cost a bomb. Laney Cub-Supertop head £329 Laney’s entry-level valve head doesn’t skimp on features or tone – as demonstrated by Brazilian phenom Lari Basilio who uses these live. The cool but minimal enclosure houses a 15-watt EL84-based amp with a footswitchable boost function plus digital reverb and can be stepped down to one-watt output for bedroom use. Laney Black Country Customs LA30BL head £779 Harking back to…

Earlier this year, Guitarist launched its first-ever competition to find Britain’s Best Amateur Guitar Builder. To keep the brief simple, the competition was open to electric guitar builds only and, as the name suggests, professional luthiers were not eligible to enter – just talented enthusiasts making guitars for the love of it. A home-build should possess great craft, purposeful design, aesthetic flair and technical ingenuity Backing us in this worthy quest were the good folk at StewMac, global suppliers of specialist tools and materials for guitar makers. The American-based company kindly put up the top prize of $500 worth of equipment from their extensive catalogue, plus a runner-up prize of $250 of lutherie kit. With that incentive to whet entrants’ appetites, plus the glory of winning the competition, we received…

IBANEZ AZS2200F PRESTIGE FROM £1,999 Ibanez’s Tele-inspired AZS2200F features a Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro bridge pickup and a Magic Touch-mini humbucker, hooked up to the Dyna-MIX5 switching system. As well as a regular three-way selector switch, a separate toggle switch gives two different altered modes, together with a bypass, for a range of series and parallel options. www.ibanez.com FENDER AMERICAN ULTRA TELECASTER £2,099 Fender’s American Ultra Tele brings the revered 50s plank right up to date. Ultra Noiseless Vintage pickups provide all the classic tones with no hum and are linked to an S-1 volume pot switch offering a choice of parallel or series wiring. Meanwhile, a treble-bleed circuit progressively maintains the highs as the volume is rolled down. www.fender.com GIBSON KIRK DOUGLAS SIGNATURE SG £2,199 ‘Captain’ Kirk Douglas’s signature…

GRETSCH G2655T-P90 STREAMLINER CENTER BLOCK JR £479 To give it its full title, the G2655T-P90 Streamliner Center Block Jr Double-Cut P90 With Bigsby is part of Gretsch’s entry-level Streamliner range, with vintage mojo emphasised by FideliSonic 90 pickups, a staple-styled P-90. These are wound on the hot side and it’s fair to say the Streamliner loves gain – it’s a bold and brawny with a tone to match. www.gretschguitars.com YAMAHA REVSTAR RS502T £619 The Revstar range was the result of a collaboration between Yamaha and a London-based design agency, drawing inspiration from the 60s and 70s café racer motorcycle trend. The exquisite lines, custom hardware, cool colours and specially designed pickups have proven to be a winning combination for many players looking for something different. www.uk.yamaha.com STERLING BY MUSIC MAN…

Looking at Strymon’s previous output, there must have been plenty of guitar players wondering when the company would produce a dedicated phaser pedal. And here it is in the very purple form of the Zelzah Multidimensional Phaser. Not just a single phaser pedal, the Zelzah offers two separately footswitchable true stereo phasers in one chassis: one a four-stage phaser, the other six-stage. These can be run individually or simultaneously with various stereo and mono output options. As with previous Strymon pedals, there is full MIDI implementation with access to 300 preset locations and the ability to add an expression pedal or footswitches. SOUNDS The left-hand side of the pedal is home to the four-stage phaser with three toggle-switched options, the first of which is Classic Sweep. Here, you can dial…

Q Dear Mod Squad, I have a question about hum. I’ve used my Strat for years with no problem. The single coils can pick up hum as we all know, but I did a gig in a local sports hall and I couldn’t get rid of it whatever I did. The only pickup selections I could use were the in-between sounds – the solo pickups all hummed excessively. What do you suggest and why on earth in this day and age do we still have this potential problem? Brian, via email A Hi Brian, I had exactly the same experience and, in that case, it was down to those bloomin’ LED lights flashing on and off around the ‘stage’. For us weekend warriors, we’re not all playing proper venues, are…

We’re all obsessed by price, but sometimes the cheapest deal, especially on a used guitar, may end up costing you a lot more in the long run. Like cars, guitars need maintenance – the more they’re played, the more likely things will wear out or stop functioning. Buying used from a good dealer should ensure that the guitar has been looked over, restrung and set up. Buying privately or online, however, you’re on your own. Whichever route you choose, it’s time for head over heart. And if you buy blind, you’re open to all sorts of problems – we’d never recommend that, even though plenty of us do it! If you can, play the guitar and adopt a more thorough, cynical approach. TUNE UP First off, tune up with a…

Since the fateful day in the mid-80s when he fought through the cigarette smoke of the local guitar shop to pick up his first Strat copy, MI retail has been in Tony Rawson’s blood. From 1997, Rawson learned his trade at Machinehead Music under the much-missed Jeff Pumfrett, before establishing Musicstreet seven years ago in Huntingdon as a destination store for brands such as PRS and Duesenberg, and a beacon of friendly, knowledgeable service. What’s the focus of Musicstreet? “We cover most bases, but I guess it’s anything of quality. We do higher-end stuff and we’re big on brands like PRS and Duesenberg. We’ve started doing a lot with Patrick Eggle, Victory Amps, that kind of thing. And then, on the effects side, it’s Strymon and Origin. So they’re tools…

GIBSON LES PAUL STANDARD ’60S £2,199 Part of Gibson’s Original Collection, the ’60s LP features a mahogany body with AA carved maple top and a rosewood’board quarter-sawn mahogany neck. The Burstbucker 61R in the neck and 61T in the bridge allow for a slightly hotter voicing, while the slim taper neck offers wider potential appeal than the more vintage girth of its ’50s sibling. www.gibson.com PRS SILVER SKY £2,399 PRS’s take – and a very good one thanks to John Mayer – on a vintage-style Fender Stratocaster. In addition to that familiar outline, we have an alder body, 648mm (25.5-inch) scale maple neck, and three PRS 635JM single coils. One of the most hyped and discussed electrics in many a year, the Silver Sky is a highly tuned signature in…