Down Under’s number one country guitar export—and November 2024 Premier Guitar cover model—Keith Urban rolled into Cincinnati’s Riverbend Music Center last month, so John Bohlinger and the Rig Rundown team drove up to meet him. Urban travels with a friendly crew of vintage guitars, so there was much to see and play. In fact, so much that they ran out of time after getting through the axes! Later, Bohli and Co. met up with Urban tech Chris Miller to wrap their heads around the rest of the straightforward pedal-free rig he’s rockin’ this summer.
Last year, Urban released High, his 12th studio record, so you’ll be sure to catch those tunes and more in his extensive jam-friendly sets. Here’s a look at what Keith is bringing with him to stages across the U.S., including a prototype signature PRS to vintage Gibsons and a pair of heavy-lifting Marshalls.
Keith shows off his latest go-to, which is the prototype for his PRS signature axe. “It started from me wanting to see if I could get a guitar that I could lean on most of the night,” Urban says of the ongoing design project. He tells Bohlinger he was looking for a better tonal response than his preferred Tele, “Clarence”—a 1989 Fender Custom 40th Anniversary model—and blended in some measurements from some of his Gibsons.
The humbucker-loaded PRS has a sunburst finish and a unique f-hole inspired by Urban’s left-forearm tattoo. This one has a Fender scale, but they’re still refining the neck details for the signature model.
Here’s Clarence
And lest we forget. Here’s a look at Clarence, Urban’s workhorse guitar until this tour.
Spirit of ’52
Here‘s what an original-year-of-issue GibsonLes Paul that’s still running the miles looks like, complete with trapeze tailpiece. This ’52 goldtop and its kin established the template.
Single-coil Joy
Apparently there was some magic in 1964, and it made its way into that year’s Stratocasters. Strats like Urban’s ’64 are considered among the best in the breed, known for their balanced tone, comfy neck profile, original black-bottom pickups, transitional logos, and the dot fretboards on models made early that year.
Bass Break
There’s one song in the set where Urban tackles bass duties, and he turns to this 1972 Fender Mustang bass, which he loves for its punchy tone. The electrical tape on the lower bout is there to ensure that the pickguard stays put!
An SG You Just Have to Play
This 1964 Gibson SG Junior is one Urban insists Bohlinger plays to understand. “I love the simplicity of it,” Urban says. The cherry red axe was a gift from session legend Dann Huff. He also rocks a ’52 Les Paul during the course of the set.
Urban turns to D’Addario NYXL strings—.010s in most cases—and he goes back and forth between his D’Addario signature Ultem pick with raised edges and D’Addario Casein picks.
All Amp
This pair of 100-watt Marshall Super Lead JMPs does most of the heavy lifting to bring Urban’s tone to life—he’s rolling sans pedalboard for this tour! The bottom head is the main one and the top one is there just in case. Since these monsters have to deliver overdriven tones, they stay cranked—the gain sits around 7—and they push a vintage checkerboard Marshall 4x12 loaded with Celestion G12H-150 Redbacks.
Post Amp Effects
Delays and modulation are all added to Urban’s tones after three mics capture the sound of the Marshall cab. That signal hits this Fractal Axe-Fx II XL+, which Chris Miller controls offstage. A Mission Engineering expression is the only pedal Urban utilizes, which controls a model of a Cry Baby in the Fractal.
Fat envelope and wah sounds are made even wilder with the help of an expansive octave effect that can be used in tandem or independently from the filter.
For those that haven’t delved too deeply into the subject or the sounds, envelope filters can seem a little loaded, stylistically speaking. Used well, they add bounce, joy, or even menace to a guitar or bass. Used wrong, they sound horribly corny. Used unconventionally, though, they can radically reshape guitar tones in surprising ways. Leveraging how they reshape tone with picking dynamics, for instance, is a great way to bust out of a box. They also pair well with distortion, fuzz, delays, modulation, and more (though if you aren’t willing to dig for gold in these combinations the results can confound at first).
Tsakalis Phonkify X FINAL VIDEO
The Tsakalis Phonkify X, an evolution of the original Tsakalis Phonkify, is, in part, a great envelope filter for the way it smooths the path to the outer edges of the effect’s potential. It’s got great range, which is enhanced by effective mix, gain, frequency, and Q controls. Using those controls together in the right combinations also makes the Phonkify X sound fat where other envelope filters can sound narrow, thin, and not terribly nuanced. (An internal voltage doubler that increases headroom is another contributing factor.) And with an octave section that can span corpulent and piercing regions of the sound spectrum—and be used independently or with the filter—the Phonkify X is a trove of powerful, odd, and uncommon guitar sounds, and a true provocateur for those in a rut.
Clarity, Body, and Brawn
One of the Phonkify X’s great strengths is the extra mass and air in its range and how easy it is to find it. As far as envelope filters—which can be counterintuitive to many players the first time out—go, the Phonkify X is very forgiving and responsive. The same qualities make it a great pair for radical or merely fattened fuzz and drive tones. Sixties-type germanium fuzzes coax fiery Hendrix- and Ron Asheton-isms that you can also utilize in traditional sweeping wah fashion if you add an expression pedal to the mix. It also sounds amazing upstream from a dark smoky overdrive that can blunt the sharpest filter edges while adding ballast and attitude. The octave effect is great on its own, too, not least because you move between deep octave-down settings and reedy high tones.
The Verdict
The latter can be a bit cloying and full of digital artifacts in some applications, but when the low octave content is used to temper that tendency, or dial it out entirely, you can summon very organic, complex, and rich tones that can be made rumbling and earth shaking with distortion or drive, or reshape the pedal’s filtered tones if you add it back in the mix. (An additional switch also enables you to situate the octave before or after the filter.). Together, these two effects that blend so seamlessly are a formidable combo.
With a tone vocabulary that spans clean, smoky, grinding, and growling—plus a Two notes speaker simulator—the 25-watt Airwave is a ferociously fun, potentially formidable amp for any size stage or studio.
Needless to say, the splashy news about Supro’s Airwave is its onboard Two notes cab sim that expands the amp’s studio and live capabilities, not to mention a player’s creative options. Having Two notes cab simulations onboard is a cool thing. It takes many of the cab sim tailoring capabilities of, say, the Universal Audio OX or Boss’ WAZA Tube Expander, and makes them part of the Airwave’s amp architecture, which is no small victory for convenience.
- YouTube
But the 2x6V6 Airwave is a very cool stage and studio amp before you ever touch the cabinet simulation capabilities. At 25 watts, with tube-driven tremolo and spring reverb, it’s a cool alternative for players considering a tweed Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb, or, for that matter, any of Supro’s excellent low- to mid-power combos. But while it’s not quite the blank slate a Deluxe Reverb is (the Airwave’s voice is generally more compressed, with lower headroom), if I had to record or play a show with the Airwave, a delay pedal, and a guitar, I’d do so confident that I had about 4-zillion awesome, tender-to-gnarly textures to work with.
Little Basher
The Airwave is a handsome amp, designed with lots of vintage Supro motifs, a wide aluminum control panel, rocker switches, and a control layout that are more than a little evocative of the Rolling Stones’ early Ampegs. There’s also a little Stones swagger in its voice. For while it can do a very convincing approximation of bright, almost-cleanish Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb sounds, it’s basically grittier than either of those. Not in a way that confines the Airwave to garage-rock trash realms, but which hints at sepia-tone speaker sounds and a loud, rowdy vintage Supro or tweed Fender edge when you dig in with a flatpick. These savage-around-the-edges facets of the Airwave’s personality are tempered, perhaps, by the 12'' speaker, which adds thickening counterpoint to the barky midrange growl and enhances bass frequencies. It helps make the 3-band EQ section feel more sensitive and interactive, too.
The tone variations available between just the EQ and master volume/gain control interplay are plentiful. But all those sounds can be dramatically recast and even made electrifyingly aggressive with the onboard, switchable boost and drive, which are activated by the two rocker switches on the front panel or optional footswitches.
Alternate Realities
To interface with the Airwave’s Two notes capabilities, you download the Torpedo Remote app. But you can obtain excellent sounds without going deep, thanks in part to the amp’s onboard boost and drive switches. They feel like pedals perfectly selected to work with the amp and each other. The drive in particular is tough and snarling. And though your results may differ, to me the effects feel organically enmeshed in the fabric of the amp’s output. Both effects can be gritty, punchy, and explosive extensions of the amp, and together they can make it sound huge for 25 watts. The Torpedo Remote app calls up more-or-less photorealistic representations of several studios and live spaces (ancient temples included!), microphones, and cabinets. As in many other cab sim applications, you can readily and easily change microphones, slide microphone positions back and forth, switch between virtual cabinets of various sizes, as well as add preamps and reverbs with easy-to-use analog-style interfaces. If the wealth of sounds here isn’t already everything you need to get a great recorded sound, they get you off to a great start. What’s important, though, is how seamlessly they function with the whole range of the amp’s tones.
The Verdict
Although $1.5K might seem like a lot to pay for an Indonesia-built tube amp, it’s noteworthy that amps like the Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue are now pushing the $1.8K barrier. But the Airwave includes a useful and well-integrated Two notes Torpedo cab sim solution worth several hundred dollars by itself. Most impressively, Airwave excels in both the purely analog and digital cab sim realms without compromising capabilities in either. The amp has loads of personality and range. It’s up for a punky Kinks/Ramones rumble or Alvin Lee rippage, but just as eager to please as a clean-cut extra in a Jaguar-and-spring-reverb surf party flick or vintage soul session. If you’re the kind of artist inclined to do a little of all that in your recording and performing life, the Airwave satisfies on every count.
Vintage Fenders, Gibsons, and Gretsches get the job done for one of Nashville’s veteran studio players.
Trusted session guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield, known for his work with Luke Combs, Tim McGraw, Kelsea Ballerini, and Elle King, among many others, was at Nashville’s FrontStage Studios for some recording work recently, and he invited PG’s John Bohlinger to get a look at all the tools he uses to cut a stellar country record.
Philcox-Littlefield picked up this sweet 1967 Gibson ES-335 from Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville as a treat when he got his end-of-year tax return.
Butcher’s Choice
This 1962 Gibson SG, which has been refinished and “butchered to some degree,” isn’t super comfortable, so it pushes Philcox-Littlefield into less usual, more creative playing.
Also in the studio stable are a Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, another SG loaded with P-90s, a Gibson Les Paul Custom, a Jerry Jones baritone, a Silvertone semi-hollowbody, and a Fender Jazzmaster, Telecaster, and Stratocaster.
Headcount
Philcox-Littlefield’s studio setup includes a cabinet of tube-amp heads hooked up to a Kahayan amp switcher, including a Fender Bassman, Fender Bandmaster, Marshall JCM800, Guytron GT100 F/V, and a Matchless DC-30. Also on the shelf is a Roland Chorus Echo RE-501.
Sol Philcox-Littlefield’s Pedalboard
Philcox-Littlefield’s studio board is packed with goodies. Along with a TC Electronic PolyTune 2, Dunlop volume pedal, Barn3 OXU Three switch, and a Line 6 HX Effects, there’s a Dr. Scientist Bitquest, Analog Man King of Tone, Nordland ODR-C, Greer Lightspeed, Bogner Ecstasy, Way Huge Swollen Pickle, Bondi Effects Squish As, Eventide H90, Strymon El Capistan, Jackson Audio/Silvertone Twin Trem, Electro-Harmonix POG III, Boss CE-2, Boss DC-2, Strymon Deco, and Strymon Mobius.
In some ways, it’s hard to know whether to categorize the Martin D Jr E StreetLegend as a backpack or travel guitar. After all, Martin still maintains the LX Little Martin line, which is marketed in very specific terms as a travel instrument. And the D Jr E’s size, which isn’t a whole lot smaller than my Martin 00-15, stretches the boundaries of that classification. But Martin definitely leans into the go-anywhere appeal of the D Jr E and its brethren in the new revamped Junior Series. If the soft case fits, wear it. Assuming it lives, at least partly, in that category, it is among the best sounding travel guitars I’ve ever played. Thanks to the all-solid spruce and sapele body construction, it possesses a warm, woody, and organic voice that is likely made richer by the new, longer 24.9" scale.
Stretching Travel Boundaries
Even apart from backpack-guitar-or-not classification questions, it must be a little tricky marketing the D Jr E StreetLegend. With its distressed finish, the StreetLegend version costs just less than 900 bucks, which, in inflationary times, might be a threshold that budget-conscious, small-guitar customers might be hard-pressed to cross. But if you broaden your expectations of what the D Jr E StreetLegend can be, the price looks less formidable, because it can definitely be a front-line, everyday instrument.
If you’ve spent any considerable time with Martins, the D Jr will feel familiar, and though its shrunken dreadnought body profile can be oddly disorienting, the longer, 24.9" scale (the previous Junior series guitars featured a 24" scale) is the same as full-sized Martin mainstays like the 000 and 00. At 1 3/4", the nut width matches the wider spec for the Martin OM, which lends the D Jr E fretboard a spacious, accommodating feel. I’d wager that more than a few players would identify the D Jr E as an instrument from Martin’s full-sized lines. Body aside, it just doesn’t feel small.
Like many guitars built in Martin’s Mexico factory, the D Jr E StreetLegend’s build quality is excellent. And though it doesn’t benefit from the nano-level attention to detail of an upmarket Nazareth-built guitar, you won’t see a trace of the hastily sanded bracing or sloppy fret dressing that mark many accessibly priced instruments. The rounded and beveled fretboard edges, which also highlight the very nice fretwork, give the D Jr E a comfortable, broken-in, and inviting feel. Our review guitar’s action was on the high side (though well within the bounds of acceptable), and though Martin didn’t include a hex wrench for adjusting the neck relief, there is room for adjustment there, as well as a break angle at the bridge that will permit shaving a few millimeters off if you want to adjust the action from that end of the string’s length.
“You won’t see a trace of the hastily sanded bracing or sloppy fret dressing that marks many accessibly priced instruments.”
It’s important to know that the D Jr E StreetLegend is not the only junior dreadnought in the line. And if you want to save 200 bucks you can opt for the natural finish D Jr E. That’s a good thing in more ways than one, because the distressed finish on the StreetLegend version is bound to be polarizing. Though the “wear” is patterned after instruments in Martin’s own museum, and identical to the pattern on the $2,500 D-18 StreetLegend, the effect is created on the D Jr E by dyeing the top and the almost uniform flatness in the distressed zone makes the faux finish damage less than convincing.
Boisterously Voiced
The D Jr E, like many small-body flattops, is strong in the midrange, which can generate brashness under really hard strumming, and if you use that technique exclusively, the bass can be a bit too boxy to offset the bright presence of the mids. If you suspect you have a heavy hand, it will pay to check how the guitar responds to your approach. A lighter touch definitely brings out the best in the D Jr E, and though there’s not much dynamic range in terms of headroom, it sounds awake and responsive to picking nuance.
The Martin E1 electronics and built-in tuner go a long way toward enhancing the utility of the D Jr E. The presence of any reasonably effective pickup and preamp would make the D Jr E very appealing to a gigging guitarist on the move. But the E-1 system is remarkably natural sounding for an affordable acoustic pickup and it can do a lot to round off sharp edges in the guitar’s treble spectrum when amplified and playing loud.
The Verdict
Though the effectiveness and appeal of the distressed StreetLegend finish will be a very personal matter, there is no denying the D Jr E’s strengths—most notably a great neck, solid woods, and responsiveness to a light touch. The extra 200 bucks you’ll pay for the StreetLegend finish makes the D Jr E seem more expensive than it should be, so it’s important to point out again that the more traditional natural finish model, at $699, will be much kinder to thy wallet and is priced more in line with comparable guitars in the liminal market space between travel, backpack, and merely small guitars. Given that, you should consider the value and design scores here on a sliding scale. But any small flattop that features all-solid-wood body construction, an OM’s wider nut width, a full scale, and fits in an overhead bin merits attention. Martin has, indeed, carved out a very interesting niche here.
