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Gear Features

Hereā€™s how 21 killer players from the past year of Rig Rundownsā€”including Justin Chancellor, Zakk Wylde, MonoNeon, Carmen Vandenberg, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, and Grace Bowersā€”use stomps to take their sounds outside the box.


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Andy Powers has been working with electric guitars his whole life, and heā€™s been slowly collecting all the ideas that could go into his own ā€œsolo project,ā€ waiting for the right time to strike.

His work as designer, guitar conceptualist, and CEO of Taylor Guitars is well-established. But when he set out to create the electric guitar heā€™d been dreaming about his whole life, this master luthier needed to set himself apart.

Great design starts with an idea, a concept, some groundbreaking thought to do something. Maybe that comes from a revelation or an epiphany, appearing to its creator in one fell swoop, intact and ready to be brought into the real world. Or maybe itā€™s a germ that sets off a slow-drip process that takes years to coalesce into a clear vision. And once itā€™s formed, the journey from idea to the real world is just as open-ended, with any number of obstacles getting in the way of making things happen.

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Lloyd Baggs has reemerged from the shadows of guitar design, for the first time since the late ā€™80s, with his innovative AEG-1 instrument.

Following the release of the AEG-1, the multi-dimensional creative and intuitive engine behind acoustic-guitar pickup manufacturer L.R. Baggs shares the fascinating story of how heā€™s always been a builder, too.

In Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed, the German filmmaker, opera director, actor, and author tells his colleague Paul Cronin, ā€œWalk on foot, learn languages and a craft or trade that has nothing to do with cinema. Filmmakingā€”like great literatureā€”must have experience of life as its foundation.ā€ When applied to the story of Lloyd Baggs, founder and owner of the L.R. Baggs Corporation, whoā€™s been a cellist, car mechanic, aspiring racecar driver, fine-art printmaker, photographer, and self-taught guitar builder and acoustic pickup engineer, Herzogā€™s sentiment grows legs.

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Hereā€™s what Bruce Springsteenā€™s righthand man brings to the bandā€™s stadium gigs.

In preparation for his cover story on Stevie Van Zandt, PGcontributor Mark Finkelpearl got a backstage tour of the E Street Bandā€™s guitars at Baltimoreā€™s Camden Yards before their September 13 show. Hereā€™s a look at the gear that Van Zandt brings on tour.

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At home in the shop at Gibson USA, where DeCola is R&D manager and master luthier.

Photo courtesy of Gibson

The respected builder and R&D manager has worked for the starsā€”Eddie Van Halen, Paul McCartney, and othersā€”while keeping his feet on the ground, blending invention, innovation, and common-sense design.

As a teenager, DeCola fell in love with surfing, but growing up in Indiana ā€¦ no ocean. So, skateboarding became his passion. When a surf park called Big Surfā€”replete with rideable wavesā€”opened up near his sister, who he was visiting during spring break at Arizona State University, she treated him to a day at the man-made sea.

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