Boutique guitar builder Bryn Marin offers custom-built Offset and Offset+ guitars with modern enhancements.
The Offset Model features the classic Alder body and Maple neck combination with Bryn Marin wide bobbin single coil pickup and rhythm circuit combination. The Offset+ model features a bound AAA figured maple top and the Bryn Marin Firebird style Mini Humbucker pickup and Bigsby vibrato.
Features
- A truly custom-built-to-order guitar design experience to choose any color and hardware option you like.
- 25-inch scale neck that is perfect length for the offset design
- New, modern body shape that is more balanced and comfortable to play.
- Thin Nitro Cellulose Lacquer finish
- Tru-Oil Satin Neck finish upon request.
- Mastery Tremolo and Bridge ($400 upcharge).
- Bryn Marin Custom Wound Pickups.
- Double Carbon Fiber Rods in the neck for additional strength and stability.
- 1.5-degree neck-to-body angle for increased bridge stability.
- Stainless steel neck inserts for maximum neck-to-body strength.
- Bigsby Vibrato on the Offset+
Bryn Marin Offset and Offset+ are designed to excel in any musical setting with a unique shape and style that stand out from the crowd of the same old boring vanilla. Check out the offset and offset+ BrynMarin guitar. A new take on the original offset design.
Handcrafted in Denver Colorado. The Bryn Marin Offset ($1,699 w/out Mastery, $2,199 w/Mastery) and Offset + ($1,999) are available online.
For more information, please visit brynmarin.com.
Fat saturation and vibrato meet noise and signal degradation in a unique pedal that will polarize purists and delight deviants.
Compelling drive and vibrato sounds. Lends nice analog ambience at higher saturation levels. Prompts creative playing.
In cleaner settings, cracks and pops can sound like a broken cable.
$159
Mojo Hand FX Stylus
mojohandfx.com
I relate to the design impulses behind the Mojo Hand FX Stylus. Deep, demented, filthy pitch wobble? Right on! Intentional sound degradation? Yes! The Stylus is a weird pedal for weird people. Not everyone will get it. Some will be dismissive. And fair warning: You should definitely try before you buy.
On one hand, there’s nothing too strange about the Stylus. It’s built around a warm analog drive section that evokes overdriven preamps and mix console distortion, and a queasy, often Uni-Vibe-like vibrato. But while you can certainly use these combined effects to stoke Jimi-style fire (and it sounds great in these applications), Mojo Hand also intended the Stylus to sound a lot like a warped and scratched record. This isn’t an altogether bizarre impulse. Blur’s Graham Coxon made hissing, popping, warbly guitar sounds a part of some of the band’s most beloved tunes. And lo-fi indie practitioners and hip-hop producers also used damaged LP sounds extensively in the ’90s.
At cleaner settings, the Stylus’ cracks and pops—introduced and manipulated by the lo-fi button and degrade knob—aren’t so clearly the product of tape hiss or vinyl wear. In fact, detractors will probably say the crackling and hissing sounds like a busted cable or an amp on the fritz. But at certain advanced saturation and warble levels, that noise lends an intriguing ambience and frequency response that genuinely evokes charming tape and LP quirks and characteristics, and can situate your riffs in very different spaces.
Guitar legend Nuno Bettencourt crashes his own Rundown to showcase the “Bumblebee” guitar he cooked up to honor Eddie Van Halen, while bassist Pat Badger shares two killer stories about basses that once belonged to members of Van Halen and Aerosmith.
Nearly 40 years ago, Nuno Bettencourt walked into Mouradian Guitar Co. in Boston, where Pat Badger was working. They formed a bond that would change their worlds—and ours—with the multi-platinum band Extreme. In March of 2024, Badger, Bettencourt, and their tech John Thayer invited PG’s John Bohlinger to talk through their current rig.
Brought to you by D'Addario:
https://ddar.io/wykyk-rr
Washburn Wrecking Crew
This Washburn N4 was developed in collaboration with Nuno Bettencourt, Washburn, and Seattle-based luthier Stephen Davies. The guitar was introduced in the mid-to-late 1990s and became Bettencourt's primary guitar. The 4N features a balanced alder body with a Seymour Duncan ’59 in the neck and a Bill Lawrence L-500 in the bridge, plus an ebony fretboard and a Kahler whammy that was featured on the earliest iterations. Later production models included a Schaller tremolo before landing on the current Floyd Rose dive bomber for off-the-rack N4s. Nuno’s strings are a custom set of GHS Boomers (.009–.052) and his custom-made picks come from Grover Allman in Australia.
Sweet As Honey
This is “Bumble Bee,” a custom-painted N4 tribute to King Edward that was done by the luthier Craig Stofko behind CHS Custom Guitars, based out of Carmel, New York. It’s a standard Nuno Washburn signature, but with a maple fretboard (a first for Nuno and the N4 series).
Softer Sounds
This Washburn Festival EA20S-Nuno Bettencourt is in the video for Extreme’s song “More Than Words,” which was filmed over 30 years ago.
This custom-painted Washburn 12-string acoustic is heard on “Hole Hearted.”
Triple Duals
Nuno tours with three Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Leads. Usually, he only runs one through a Marshall 4x12 cab. (There are six total onstage but only one is hot and mic'd.) All the cabs are loaded with Celestion G12T-75s that combine a huge, tightly controlled low-end and aggressive mid-range with a softened top-end.
Nuno runs few effects. In front of the amp, there’s a battery powered Pro Co RAT (which stays on all the time), a Boss OC-5 Octave (plugged in and connected for just two solos), and a script logo MXR Phase 90 without a light. There’s also a Boss GT-8 that runs through the effects loop of the Marshall for delays.
Kingly Gifts
This Mouradian CS-74 bass is Pat Badger’s number-one. The alder-bodied bass, fitted with an EMG pickup, was built for Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith. About two years ago, Tom gave the bass to Pat. This and all of Badger’s basses are strung with Rotosound Ultramag Strings (.045–.105).
This Mouradian one-pickup bass was built for Michael Anthony from Van Halen. Michael passed it along to Pat a few years ago.
This classic ’80s Hamer Blitz bass is a recent Reverb purchase.
Badger's Den
Badger tours with two Ampeg amps: a SVT-4 Pro and a SVT Classic. There’s a wall of 4x10 cabs underneath them, but only one is used.
Pat runs his bass into a Boss TU-3 tuner, Boss GE-7 EQ, EHX Micro POG, Pro Co Rat, Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI, and EBS Billy Sheehan Signature Drive.
Shop Nuno Bettencourt & Pat Badger's Gear
Washburn N4-Nuno Vintage USA Electric Guitar
Washburn Nuno Bettencourt N4 Authentic Signature - Natural Matte
Seymour Duncan SH-1n '59 Model Neck 4-conductor Humbucker Pickup - Black
MXR CSP026 '74 Vintage Phase 90 Pedal
Pro Co RAT 2 Distortion / Fuzz / Overdrive Pedal
Boss OC-5
EMG 35DC Active Ceramic Modern Humbucker Bass Pickups
Rotosound UM45 UltraMag Type 52 Alloy Bass Guitar Strings - .045-.105 Standard 4-String
Ampeg SVT-CL 300
Ampeg SVT-810AV 8x10"
Ampeg SVT-4PRO 1200-watt Tube Preamp Bass Head
EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive Pedal
Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI V2 Pedal
Electro-Harmonix Micro POG Polyphonic Octave Generator Pedal
Boss GE-7 7-band EQ Pedal
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner Pedal with Bypass