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Fractal Audio System’s rackmount Axe-Fx units awakened many players to the possibilities of digitally modeled amps, cabinets, and effects. The AX8 puts Fractal’s realistic modeling technology into the pedalboard format and provides plenty of juice for most applications. The ruggedly built unit sounds stellar, and if you invest the effort to get acquainted with this open-ended device, you’re likely to be inspired.
Though skeptical about guitars that claim to be all things, Ted Drozdowski found the Godin Summit Classic CT Convertible lives up to its name. Whether he played it through a vintage Twin Reverb, a Marshall Super Lead, or an Orange Micro Terror, the Convertible sounded great and felt familiar. With its Duncan P-Rails and active/passive HDR Revoicer circuit, the versatile Convertible is ready for any gig or session.
Powered by a new-production bucket brigade delay chip, JAM’s Llama Supreme analog delay combines vintage tone with modern features, including tap tempo with switchable subdivisions, controller pedal connectivity, an adjustable LFO oscillator, a low-pass tone knob, a variable Q control, and a hold function. If you’re looking to craft wild new variations on a classic color, you’ll love the Llama’s expanded sonic repertoire.
The Classic Class Shirley is about as nice a compromise between the worlds of Gibson and Fender as you are likely to find. Light, compact, and with a sweet blend of humbucker sonorities and 25 1/2”-scale zing, the Shirley’s plentitude of sounds makes the $1,500 price tag look like a bargain.
A modern take on the Sovtek Big Muff, the Defector Fuzz boasts two independent sections: a rather gritty boost and a 4-stage transistor fuzz. A small toggle switch selects three different fuzz flavors—silicon-diode clipping, no clipping, and LED clipping—and a flexible mid control lets you beef up or scoop out the tone. This knob alone is worth the price of admission.
TC Electronic’s Tailspin is, in most respects, a derivative of parent company Behringer’s UV300 vibrato. The Tailspin, however, takes that famously overachieving circuit and situates it in a sturdy metal enclosure. That makes this hip-looking stomp a screaming deal—and perhaps the best budget alternative to a vintage VB-2 anywhere.
The sounds and legend of the original Echoplex tape delay are tough to live up to. But MXR impressed with the EP103—delivering digital approximations of the Echoplex’s ravishing echo tones and sonic quirks like tape compression, warble, and high-end decay that proved the company was not content with a mere retro branding exercise.
While the relic’d Forty Eight reviewer David Abdo took for a ride displays some obvious cues from Gibson Explorer and Thunderbird models of yesteryear, it proved to be in a class all its own. Decked out with a Sandberg V-style split-coil and Power Humbucker combo, it’s ready to rock, but it shows its mettle as a very versatile axe as well.
True class-A amps usually have just one output tube, but the 10-watt, 1x12 Milkman Pint deploys two 6V6s in parallel, essentially treating them as a single tube for increased output. The Pint’s workmanship is faultless, its lightly overdriven tones have complexity, the tremolo and ’verb are to die for, and its beguiling clean tones make it ideal for refined jazz and fingerstyle guitarists playing in intimate venues.
Big wah in a little box is the name of the game for this new addition to the Cry Baby family. So impressed with how the Mini Bass Wah inspired funky, filtered sweeps and its ability to give bass lines a “vocal quality rife with blossoming wahs,” reviewer David Abdo found himself utilizing the pedal for almost the entirety of a 3-hour soul gig.
Introduced in 1954 as a more articulate version of Gibson’s P-90 pickup, the alnico V pickup—usually called the “staple pickup”—is one of the great forgotten guitar gizmos. The alnico V design is a classy, relatively hi-fi alternative to the traditional P-90, and it works particularly well in the neck position. With its extended range and extra “air” on top, Lollar’s gorgeous-sounding Staple P-90 is a stellar incarnation of the original.
The ’57 Custom Pro-Amp isn’t a reproduction of the Pro that Fender made in the ’50s, but it’s inspired by the original’s 5A5 circuit, which, like this new 26-watt combo, was wired into a thin-bodied cabinet. With its custom 15" Eminence, the amp offers a wide tonal spectrum and clear bottom end. A superb pedal platform, the ’57 Custom is a boutique-level product with a major manufacturer’s nameplate.
This dual-channel 50-watt combo features a 12" Celestion V-Type speaker and is powered by two EL34s. Each channel has independent reverb, bass, mid, and treble controls, while the clean channel has its own master and volume, and the gain channel has independent level and drive knobs. The versatile Sonzera 50 can easily cover everything from pop to blues to math-metal, and its bang-for-buck ratio is equally impressive.
When DigiTech unveiled the Whammy pedal 28 years ago, it was an instant hit. With its built-in controller pedal, the Whammy was fresh-sounding and expressive. DigiTech marked the Whammy’s latest anniversary by nixing the expression pedal—at least on the Ricochet, which is designed to fit on a crowded pedalboard. With a handful of knobs and switches controlling transposition, the streamlined Ricochet provides a superb introduction to pitch-shift effects.
The dual-pickup Westbury is part of Supro’s Island series, whose models are based on Jimi Hendrix’s first guitar: a 1962 Supro Ozark. Cool features include an alder body, a set maple neck, asymmetrical headstock, jumbo frets, and a “wave” tailpiece. But the star attractions are the recreated gold-foil pickups, which boast an airy high end and fat, full-range sound. Oozing character, the ultra-playable Westbury sells for under a grand.
Epifani’s svelte class-D Piccolo 999 might be a featherweight at a mere 4 1/2 pounds, but its 1,000-watt punch said otherwise to reviewer David Abdo who bestowed a Premier Gear Award upon the amp for several reasons—one being its simple but effective EQ section. “The bass, mid, and treble controls are expertly voiced for quick tone-shaping with significant shelving capabilities,” remarked Abdo.
The 8" American Vintage G8C packs serious punch. It sounds rich and loud—and broken-in straight out of the gate. Installed in a vintage silverface Fender Vibro Champ, it provided superb enjoyment for at-home playing and, with a quality mic, yielded recorded tones so grand that listeners were amazed to learn they came from such a small speaker—let alone a brand new one.
When PG’s Shawn Hammond tested this 8" alnico speaker in a ’76 Fender Vibro Champ, he admired how it handled a wide range of pickups with minimal harshness, regardless of volume. Even with a Tele’s bridge pickup and the amp cranked, he found it virtually impossible to get the 8A125 to sound piercing. If you want a fat-sounding 8" speaker, this Weber is an excellent choice.
Acoustically, the AE44II has a balanced sound that’s great for both strumming and gently fingerpicked passages. The bass response won’t threaten a dreadnought, but it’s still respectable. Plugged in, the Applause confronts challenges similar to those of other affordable, single-element piezo systems, but boosting the mids a bit and reducing treble and bass a tad yields impressively usable tones—especially considering the price point.
The original Strat design is so iconic and beloved that one must be cautious about referring to changes as “improvements.” But with its updated pickups, hardware, and treble-bleed bypass wiring, the American Professional Stratocaster will delight those who relish both its vintage-approved tones and the new possibilities afforded by the revised wiring. And there’s no denying the Professional’s fine build quality, zingy resonance, and richly nuanced tones.
Since G7th began making capos in the mid-oughts, the company has found multiple ways to refine the capo concept. The UltraLight earned kudos not just for its utility and light weight, but affordability that makes buying a spare—or three—super easy on the pocketbook.
With its top-shelf components, magnificent point-to-point wiring, octal preamp tubes, and four EL34s, the 100-watt JMX 100 is impressive in terms of construction and authoritative sound. Note fundamentals are rock solid, and the crisp and definitive transients transmit every nuance of pick and finger. Hit the cranked JMX 100 with a great fuzz pedal and the amp’s clarity and headroom yield godlike saturation. A high-wattage beast for the connoisseur.
This relatively young Finnish company has already garnered quite a fan base with their pedal offerings for bassists, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that their maiden amplifier, the Microtubes 900, came away with a win this year. Especially impressed with its available grit, reviewer Jordan Wagner proclaimed, “The overdrive produced by its Microtubes Engine can cover a wide gamut of tones and has enough on tap to make you think twice about keeping that Rat or Big Muff on your pedalboard.”
LunaStone’s the Pusher is a devastatingly beautiful clean boost that’s bound to shatter some expectations about the utility of a one-knob pedal. With said knob at noon, it gives a healthy bump without infringing on amp tone or its neighboring dirt pedals. The very affordable Pusher ups the volume without getting in the way.
A 20-watt rendition of Marshall’s legendary Silver Jubilee, the 2525C Mini Jubilee is available as a compact 1x12 closed-back combo or head. Powered by two EL34s and decked out in signature silver-and-grey vinyl and chrome, it exudes the coolness of its big brother. Both a great grab-and-go amp and studio workhorse, the Mini Jubilee delivers authentic Marshall tones across all gain and volume ranges.
UA’s superb-sounding Apollo Twin MkII audio interface comes bundled with wonderful plug-in models of classic compressors, limiters, and preamps—even a full-featured virtual mixer. It has enough connectivity for ambitious project studios, yet it fits in a gig bag. Equipped with two gorgeous mic preamps, pristine A/D/A convertors, and a flexible set of inputs and outputs, the MkII is a perfect entry portal for UA newcomers and recording guitarists.
$1,299 street (as reviewed with quad-core processor) uaudio.com
A new creation from luthier Dennis Fano, the Rivolta Combinata boasts two P-90s, a wraparound bridge, super-sized position markers, a substantial old-school neck, expertly installed vintage-flavored frets, an offbeat vinyl pickguard, and excellent workmanship for its price range. Tones are attractive and effervescent at all control settings and gain levels. If jangle is your angle, you’ll be happy here.
After spending quality time with Taylor’s 23 1/2"-scale GS Mini-e Bass, associate editor Rich Osweiler confirmed that size doesn’t necessarily matter for pulling big bass tones out of an acoustic bass guitar. Osweiler was especially enamored with the “punchy thump and warmth that leans towards the darker tones of an upright,” and didn’t think twice about tagging the Mini-e with a Premier Gear Award.
With their ’60s avionics-derived enclosures and top-quality builds, Spacemen effects have become objects of lust for many fuzz fetishists. But the real appeal in Spaceman’s pedals is an audible originality, and that quality shows through brightly in the Titan II. Loud and gainy, the Titan II is less nuanced than some Spaceman effects, but it still successfully carves out it’s own beautifully fuzzy sonic niche.
The TWA Hot Saké delivers tons of tone-shaping power for its size and price. From luxuriantly transparent boosts that rival some of the best Klon clones (thanks to the fantastically tunable EQ) to woofy grind when you max the drive and rein in the mids and tone, Hot Saké offers exceptional flexibility for a small, straightforward, and reasonably priced stomp.
Built to serve transatlantic tastes, the Winfield Dust Devil seems to speak most strongly in British hues. But we found that issues of accent were soon forgotten once we plugged in. And the Dust Devil proved versatile, airy, powerful, and full of brash and complex presence.
Based on Breedlove’s Concerto body, the Premier is engineered to deliver the booming sound of a dreadnought without sacrificing playing comfort. Its solid Sitka top, solid East Indian rosewood body, Honduran mahogany neck, versatile voice, and excellent playability make it a standout flattop, and at just over two grand with a deluxe hardshell case, it’s a good buy for an American-made guitar of such exceptional quality and design.
The Mercury V is a perfect example of Steve Carr’s “tradition with a twist” approach to building amps. The 16-watt, 1x12 combo’s Brit-style features include a simple yet versatile preamp section that mimics the gain characteristics of Marshall amps from the ’60s through the ’90s. The Celestion speaker is another British nod. Workmanship is top-notch. PG’s Joe Gore declared it “simply one of the finest-sounding amps I’ve ever played.”
The Blurst is an endlessly entertaining analog filter pedal packed with tone-shaping and modulation options. It employs a low-pass filter, which removes frequencies only above the cutoff point—the quintessential analog-synth filter sound. It also has an onboard LFO oscillator and offers expression pedal connectivity. With its versatile controls, the Blurst is a productive and cost-effective way to enlarge your palette of filtered tones.
Though it visually evokes a 1920s Gibson L-1, the little Roadhouse is a response to a resurgent interest in parlor guitars. The solid Sitka top is paired with a layered wild cherry body and a silverleaf maple neck, which are harvested from already-fallen trees. The Fishman Sonitone electronics make the guitar gig-ready, and with its modest price tag, the easy-playing instrument represents a value that’s hard to beat.
The most encouraging news amid Guild’s latest transfer of ownership—and in the new D-55—is that so many of the idiosyncrasies that make Guilds special remain intact. But this guitar’s balance and dynamism also make it a dreadnought of copious practical upside on stage and in the studio.
The 60-watt Compact 60/3 TE is the third iteration of a fixture in AER’s acoustic-guitar amp lineup, and it’s fingerstyle wizard Tommy Emmanuel’s signature model. At 14 pounds, the tiny 2-channel 60/3 feels lightweight, yet rugged. The tone controls and four preset digital effects offer plenty of sonic flexibility, and the 8" speaker sounds punchy and organic. Portability, ease of operation, and beautiful transparent tone—they’re all here.
The ODS Classic is ridiculously well made, and its tones are ridiculously rich and defined, with ridiculous headroom and touch response. Andy Fuchs freely admits that Howard Dumble’s amps influenced his own models, which explains all the knobs and switches, including numerous dual-function concentric and push/pull pots. The price is formidable, but the build, sound quality, and versatility are everything you’d hope for in an ultra-premium amp.
Doug Kauer’s Titan KR1 is an American-made guitar that sells for a base cost of $1,299. The boutique luthier delivers this modest price thanks to ingenious design and a build-to-order business model. Top-notch hardware and electronics are all standard, and you can choose from a wide variety of pickups as an upgrade. On all fronts—including sound and playability—the superbly crafted KR1 is remarkable for the price.
$1,299 street ($1,375 as reviewed with Duncan Seth Lover humbuckers) titanguitars.com
Powerful and programmable, the Grandmeister Deluxe 40 manages to strike a cool middle ground between the turn-it-up-and-rip immediacy of traditional tube amps and modelers that offer thousands of tone options. Reviewer Joe Charupakorn found the programmability instinctive and the onboard effects superb. But it was the fundamental sound and fury living in H&K’s circuitry that ultimately led to this Premier Gear Award.
Two designs once relegated to oddball bins of Fender’s history—the Jazzmaster pickup and the Seth Lover-designed Wide Range humbucker—were re-imagined by Curtis Novak, builder of some of the best Wide Range repros available. This splendid set retains traditional Jazzmaster looks, with less noisy, meatier, Wide Range-style tonalities.
Reviewer Steve Cook found that Fender’s refresh on one of the company’s most iconic bass models was a move they didn’t take lightly. Calling out the slim, C-shaped neck as “lightning fast” and noting that “it begs you to play all over the neck and
as quickly as possible,” Cook had difficulty finding anything subpar about the V-Mod Jazz pickup-loaded 4-string. J-bass nirvana equals a Premier Gear Award in 2017.
The relatively diminutive Martin 0-series guitars are unsung recording studio heroes. And this newest 14-fret, mahogany-and-spruce incarnation exhibits the concise, punchy, and zingy characteristics of a classic 0-series, with the practically perfect construction quality we see in so many contemporary Martins.
Brutish and simple as a battle axe, but handsomely refined, the Cyclops’ streamlined, original lines and top-flight construction dazzled reviewer Ted Drozdowski. So did the sounds: articulate, massive, singing, dynamic, and versatile beyond the guitar’s rock-tough visage.
The original Sunn Beta Lead began its unlikely rise to legend status thanks to the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, and the Hilbish Design Beta delivers Osborne’s massive clean-to-sludgy muscle with killer authenticity. It also provides surprisingly powerful active-EQ tone-shaping capabilities—all at a refreshingly affordable price.
Mike Beigel’s original Mu-Tron designs were fantastic and complex sounding, and looked hip as hell. In both respects, the twin-decked Mu-FX Phasor 2X is something of a time machine. Reviewer Joe Gore found the sounds immersive and tactile, but loved the extra dimensionality of the stereo outputs.
While this English amp builder isn’t a household name, a number of recent releases—the Victory V40 in particular—are making the company a growing presence stateside. It is punchy, defined, and impressively well built at a relatively accessible price. We ended up very impressed with the V40 Deluxe’s combination of classicism and unique voices.
Our colleague Joe Gore hinted that the Crown Jewel could be the most versatile overdrive ever. And with a modular design that enables you to re-configure modules covering everything from Fuzz Face and Klon clones to Orange Squeezer and Rangemaster-style tones, we’re inclined to agree.
$219 ($483 as reviewed with all 11 preassembled boost modules) buildyourownclone.com
Given the company’s high-wattage heritage, it’s hard not to be tickled by the thought of a 20-watt, 1x10 combo bearing the Friedman name. What really tickled us, though, was the outsized and glorious sounds of the Dirty Shirley Mini—and the fact that reviewer Ted Drozdowski couldn’t actually summon a lousy tone from this little powerhouse.
Simplicity is beautiful—and mighty potent—in the form of the EarthQuaker Erupter, a vision of fuzz perfection (at least in the eyes of EQD founder Jamie Stillman) that utilizes a bias knob as it’s only control. The breadth of available tones is inversely huge to the number of knobs, however. And this loud, boisterous box happily hollers in voices ranging from splatty to soaring.
Robert Keeley isn’t known as a high-gain pedal builder. But this impressive first foray into the field is no casual bit of dabbling. And its 6-knob array and three gain stages enable a huge range of tone-shaping options and shades of gain intensity running from crunchy to bludgeoning.
It’s hard to imagine stuffing more options into a 125B enclosure than Chase Bliss has with the Brothers. And none of the gajillion switches and knobs are wasted in this unit that incorporates opamp and JFET distortion circuits that can be used independently, cascaded, and tuned to deliver everything from sparkling boost to fiery fuzz.
Rather than hone in on a single overdrive color, Italian builder Gurus made versatility the calling card of the Sexy Drive MkII—with a powerful 3-band EQ, buffers at the input and output, and a dry/dirty balance control that means rainbows of overdrive color many times over.
Gated fuzz isn’t for everyone, but in the form of the Conquistador, Way Huge created a gated fuzz box that hints as much at spitting ’60s fuzz antecedents as contemporary instruments of doom and thrash. And it’s this ability to cover Davie Allan as readily as Queens of the Stone Age that knocked us out.
EHX’s Canyon proved to be the little echo that could. With 11 delay functions, including Deluxe Memory Man simulations, octave and modulated delays, a looper, and more, it impressed reviewer Dave Hunter with its versatility. But it also dazzled on the purely sonic front—delivering deep, immersive delays and plenty of subtle textures, all at a dirt-cheap price.
Although the Mercury 7 is inspired by the legendary Lexicon 224 reverb, reviewer Joe Charupakorn found the pedal’s power and depth considerably way beyond a single authentic reverb simulation. A potent pitch vector control is the star of the show—giving reverb textures startling complexity and a range of tones that takes guitar sounds well outside typical 6-string tone spheres.
The Santa Barbara company best known for legendary pickups has been on a roll with great effects lately. But Seymour Duncan went big and triumphed mightily with the Andromeda, an ambitious dynamic delay that Joe Charupakorn declared an instrument as much as a stompbox, capable of inspiring unexpected—and undiscovered—directions.
Mooer is a master of stuffing great-sounding circuits in small enclosures—and making the prices smaller still. But even by Mooer’s lofty standards (for little pedals), the Mod Factory Pro is overflowing with features, functionality, and value. Everything from tremolo to phase to ring modulation—and powerful controls for tweaking them—is on tap, all for the cost of one or two larger and much less capable pedals.
Ampeg knows a thing or two about bass overdrive tones, and when reviewer Jon D’Auria got his hands on—and bass into—the company’s $99 Scrambler Bass Overdrive, he found a versatile range of drive tones. Impressed with the way the pedal maintained signal strength when pushed to the extreme, D’Auria summed it all up by saying: “The pedal can do a lot to enhance your sound—whether adding the perfect dusting of grit or full-blown, overdriven bliss.”
Unless you’re obsessive about pristine predictability, analog delays are one of the greatest stompbox joys. The Echobrain reminded us why. Tactile, mechanically interactive, organically responsive, and just a bit unpredictable and hairy, the Echobrain sounded deep and full of character—all at a street price that verges on preposterously cheap.
Though Gibson polarized some loyalists with the Modern Double Cut’s styling, reviewer Ted Drozdowski found it’s tones and playability beyond reproach—enjoying the super-slinky feel, 24-fret range, and fat, classic Gibson humbucker tones that, in some cases, bettered Ted’s own vintage Gibsons.
Pairing an overdrive and a fuzz in a single pedal is no big thing. But to combine two very original, seamlessly compatible, and dazzlingly musical circuits in a single stomp is a rare feat, and those qualities made the loud, dynamic, and rich-sounding King Fuzz XL a Premier Gear Award shoo-in.
As impressive and powerful as multi-effects and modelers can be, most are inevitably complex. What sets the HeadRush amp/modeler apart is its relative simplicity and streamlined functionality, enabled by a touchscreen that unlocks HeadRush’s potency in a snap.
It’s not easy standing out among overdrives. Yet with an ability to move effortlessly from blackface tones to Brit grit and, in particular, its penchant for extracting Vox-y sounds from Fender-style circuits, the Foxcatcher proved a powerfully chameleonic tool for overdrive tone hunters.
Pinter’s Jazz Jr. was among the most unique guitars we saw all year—from it’s British racing green finish and Coral-influenced body profile, to its flatwound optimized design. But the biggest surprise was how stunningly good it is as a jazz guitar—just as advertised. And with its mellow and articulate Joshua Spataro-designed pickups and smooth playability, it distinguished itself—even among Premier Gear Award winners.
The Anzol pulls off the clever, almost audacious trick of mating the body profile of a dirt-cheap pawnshop Teisco to tip-top workmanship. Yet the sounds—airy, zingy, resonant, and lively—make the Anzol a guitar worlds away from its superficial bargain basement inspiration and well worthy of a Premier Gear Award.
A lot of builders toy with mutant guitar design only to arrive at less-than-constructive ends. Not Chihoe Hahn. The veteran builder’s new 112 is a magnificent mash up of Gibson, Fender, and vintage budget guitar touches united in a whole with a versatile, unique voice and heavenly playability.
H&K is probably not the first brand you think of when it comes to acoustic amps. Still, reviewer Adam Perlmutter found the era 1 so organic sounding that he often felt as though he wasn’t using an amplifier at all. Pretty sweet for an amp builder traditionally associated with screaming high-gain tones.
Anyone inclined to associate Radial exclusively with tough DI boxes, is in for surprise in the form of the equally bulletproof Texas Pro overdrive. We loved the versatility of the three overdrive voices that move from an even-tempered TS-style mid-gain voice to progressively hotter and more contemporary sounds. And the addition of a very effective boost circuit makes the Texas Pro an overdrive of impressive tone shaping power.
Shawn Hammond called the Techno FA “pound for pound, inch for inch, one the most powerfully addicting phasers on the market.” Given its compact dimensions, options for 2- or 4-stage phasing, and a bright control—all of which help you settle this modulator seamlessly into your rig—we can hardly argue.
SUF’s Matt Pasquerella keeps hitting home runs in the form of dead-on Big Muff clones. And the Alabaster, which combines an effective boost/cut control and a near-perfect “bubble font” Sovtek-style circuit is both a satisfying turn for experienced Muff users and a killer launching pad for players new to the Big Muff realm.
If you think the ’64 Custom Deluxe is just a pricier, handwired Deluxe Reverb reissue, you’d be missing out an the organic breakup, tasty tremolo on both channels, and extra touch sensitivity that make this Deluxe extra sweet, and in the opinion of Shawn Hammond, worth every penny.
This year’s Premier Gear Award winners are, as usual, an eclectic set—full of old-school vintage homage, leading-edge digital developments, and imaginative meetings of those worlds. Dig in and dig it as we revisit the gear that fired the enthusiasm and wonder of our editors and contributors in 2017.
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