"In addition to their striking color, EBMMуs roasted necks offer greater resistance to temperature and humidity changes. The company says the roasting process modifies the microstructure of the wood in a way that makes it comparable to older wood in terms of resonance and clarity. "
Power supply innovator CIOKS has introduced its Retro Series pedalboard power supplies, blending vintage aesthetics with state-of-the-art technology. Inspired by the iconic designs of the 1980s, the Retro Series introduces two limited-edition products: the CIOKS DC-7 VHS Tape and the CIOKS SOL Cassette Tape.
The Retro Series pays homage to two beloved 80s mainstays—the VHS tape and the cassette tape—while delivering CIOKS’ reliable, high-performance power.
CIOKS DC-7 VHS Tape
Featuring a meticulously crafted graphic of a classic VHS tape, the DC-7 combines nostalgic charm with cutting-edge functionality. This powerhouse delivers clean, stable power for modern pedalboards, ensuring optimal performance for musicians. It features 7 isolated DC-outlets for effect pedals each with four selectable voltages. Each of the outlets can put out 6W which corresponds to 660mA of current at 9V. Additionally the DC7 has also a 5V USB outlet and an auxiliary 24V outlet.
CIOKS SOL Cassette Tape
Inspired by the iconic audio cassette, the SOL offers a retro-cool design paired with advanced power distribution, perfect for compact setups and vintage enthusiasts alike. Featuring the same 660mA at 9V DC per outlet and four switchable voltages on each outlet as its bigger brother CIOKS DC7, SOL is the most powerful small form-factor power supply available today with a total of 30 watts of DC power available.
The Retro Series is available for a limited time exclusively through authorized CIOKS dealers. Street pricing for the DC-7 VHS is $294.00 and pricing for the SOL Cassette is $219.00. For more information visit cioks.com.
The cosmic-country cowboy touts a rig inspired by the greats and powered by a mix of vintage and modern-day gear.
Hot on the heels of his new record, Horizons, Daniel Donato took PG’s John Bohlinger on a trip through his live setup, which spans more than 70 years of electric-guitar history.
This Fender Custom Shop 1963 Telecaster has “everything that a great traditional Telecaster needs,” says Donato.
Jack of All Trades
This DGN Custom Guitars T-style, built by Dan Neafsey, is dubbed the Epoch. Donato wanted a Tele that he could play all night without tiring of the tones, so Neafsey assembled this do-it-all electric. Its body is an eighth of an inch smaller than a traditional Tele’s, and its flame-maple neck sports a compound radius. Neafsey wound the PAF-style pickups, which can be configured as overwound single-coils via a coil-tap function. The steel ashtray bridge was cut to fit a humbucker.
Donato plays Dunlop Jazz III picks, and loads his guitars with a .010–.052 set of Ernie Ball Slinky strings.
Pro Tip
This 1966 Fender Pro Reverb is the first black-panel amp Donato ever purchased. It’s been converted to a 2x12 configuration in place of the usual 1x15, and it’s loaded with Weber 12F150 speakers.
Daniel Donato’s Pedalboard
Donato says that while the Pro Reverb is the steak, the Fender Tonemaster Pro is the best thing to season it with. His effects run into this floor unit, which is set to a black-panel Twin Reverb program, through a Radial Highline, and out to the front of house at a clean, crisp level. Donato uses some of the Tonemaster Pro’s onboard effects, too, like a graphic EQ and tape echo.
The rest of the board, designed by XAct Tone Solutions, carries a Dunlop X Volume Mini and CAE Wah, Gamechanger Audio Plus, Greer Lightspeed, a Keeley Noble Screamer, Cosmic Country Phaser, and Rotary, a Strymon TimeLine, Walrus R1, Universal Audio Max, DigiTech FreqOut, and Eventide H90.
An EHX Hum Debugger, always on, rests on top of his amp to keep his Teles in line.
Hello, and welcome back to another installment of Mod Garage. My homework for this month’s column was to completely disassemble last month’s Harley Benton guitar, and as expected, there were some surprises under the hood.
The first surprise hit me while taking off the factory-installed strings. While doing so, all six string ferrules fell out of the body onto the floor. While it’s not a rare scenario that the ferrules on a Telecaster can be pulled out easily, this was special. It’s not a big problem, because with the strings installed, the string tension will hold them in place, but who wants to search for the string ferrules on the floor every time you need to change the strings—especially on a dark stage floor in the middle of a gig? This is not custom-shop grade, so it was the first issue on my list.
After measuring the diameter of the drilled holes in the body and the ferrules, it was clear why they fell out: The holes are a lot larger than the diameter of the ferrules. It was clear that I can’t glue them in for a better fit, nor use tape to compensate. There were only two real solutions: close the holes in the body with wooden dowels and drill them again, or use different ferrules matching the diameter of the holes in the body. The stock bullet-shaped ferrules are very cheaply made, so I decided it wasn’t worth the work to save them. I ordered a new set of ferrules with a larger diameter than the holes in the body (making an existing hole bigger is much easier and less work than filling it and starting from zero). I picked a standard set of vintage protruding ferrules—the first $12 on our bill.
Photo courtesy of SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
This wasn’t the best start, but it is what it is! After taking the guitar apart completely, I made a game plan. Visually, I want to keep it mostly vintage looking, but with a modern twist to get the best of both worlds. I decided to age the hardware only slightly to give it a used and worn look, but with no rust or artificial damages. Same with the body and neck—while the neck already has a satin-matte look, the body is very shiny and glossy. I’ll break the shine, giving it a matte and used look but without cracks or damage. This will lend the color a much more pleasing vintage appearance, and it’ll feel much better compared to the high-gloss finish. The complete guitar weighs only 7.2 lbs (3.3kg), which is really lightweight for a Telecaster. I really like light electric guitars, so I’ll attempt to shave off even more weight during this process.
Let’s start with analyzing the body of our guitar to see what we have. It’s easy to see that saving time and cutting costs were principal directives—which is understandable given the price of the guitar. Let’s love it for what it is rather than hating it for what it isn’t. The rough-hewn body is very lightweight and made out of basswood, which is not a traditional “tonewood” for electric guitars. It’s the first choice for carving and woodturning work of all kinds because it’s relatively soft; easy to work with, but solid. From the neck pocket’s vantage point, we can tell that the body isn’t made of one or two pieces of wood, but of many, many more. In the neck pocket alone, I can count four pieces, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the body is made out of 15 pieces or even more, so I think we can call it stave-glued. We can also glean some more information from the neck pocket: It’s not only stave-glued, but also laminated horizontally in several layers, and the paint is ultra-thick—a trait you can notice around every drilled hole on the body.
Photo courtesy of SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
With these qualities in mind, let’s repeat some common internet guitar knowledge (CIGK) and make some assumptions about this instrument:
A lightweight electric guitar will have no sustain and a thin sound.
Basswood isn’t tonewood, so it won’t sound very good.
It’s a multi-piece body, which will make it sound worse.
The ultra-thick polyurethane finish kills tone because the wood of the guitar can’t breathe and resonate freely.
According to all this online wisdom, we have the worst guitar one can think of, right? Ignoring all these assumptions, one could argue it’s an excellent body because it’s extremely solidly made (stave-glued and laminated), armored under a thick and glass-like layer of ultra-resilient polyurethane finish, yet still lightweight. By the end of our project, we’ll see what’s fact and what’s fiction, but we have plenty of work to do first.
Here is a list of fixable issues to be addressed:
1. There is a lot of paint in almost every hole in the guitar, often paired with fringed wood fibres from the drilling process.
2. There is a lot of wooden debris, primer, and paint in the neck pocket, as well as a 10mm hole.
3. The depth of the bridge pickup’s cavity is relatively shallow.
4. Inside the electronic compartment there is a massive block of wood.
These will be the first steps to enhance the quality of the body, with the first being the easiest one. You don’t need much for this, just some half-round files in different sizes, a countersink, some old newspaper, and, of course, some time.
I assume they used worn-out, blunt drill bits in the factory, which would explain this mess. They first drilled the holes, with little care for the result, then painted over afterwards, preserving all the fringed wooden fibres under a thick layer of paint. Luckily, this is easy to correct. Cover your workspace with some old newspapers, place the body on it, and clean all the holes with a half-round needle file before using a larger one to clean the hole for the output jack.
This was the meanest one on this guitar—I was really surprised how much stuff came out of it after some passes with the file. After all the holes are cleaned and free of any paint and debris, use a sharp countersink to carefully clean the tops of all the holes. Don’t use any machine for this, just a countersink, your hands, moderate pressure, and two passes for every hole. Because the paint is really thick, it’s easy to chip off some color, so it’s important that your countersink is really sharp and you don’t apply too much pressure.
Photo courtesy of SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
This was a good start! Next month, we will continue with the second task on our list: cleaning the neck pocket, which is a very important step. Stay tuned, and remember, our $352 budget is reduced to $340 because of the new ferrules I bought.
MESA/Boogie is the original boutique Home of Tone, handcrafting amplifiers of uncompromising quality from the world’s finest materials in Petaluma, California, USA. Today, with reverence and pride, MESA/Boogie has announced the arrival of the Mark IIC+ HRG and the return of the 1x12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet. The new MESA/Boogie Mark IIC+ HRG and the 1x12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet are now available worldwide at authorized dealers, Gibson Garage locations, and on www.mesaboogie.com.
“HRG harkens back to the Lagunitas Shop, where Randall Smith built every amp from an expanded menu, offering the ‘Super Sixty’ Boogie as the base model platform to build upon,” says Doug West, Director, Tone Lab, Gibson Amplifiers and MESA/Boogie. “Popular options included Hundred Watts, Reverb, and Graphic EQ, along with solid hardwood cabinetry for added beauty and durability. Using chassis codes during the build process, the two main models became the ‘SRG’ and the more powerful ‘HRG’—the fully loaded amp, sans cabinetry.
We’re excited to bring back this iconic and feature-rich Mark Series, now built on the IIC+ platform for the first time since the production Mark IIIs (and the more recent JP-2C). The result is a beast: it can play clean in Rhythm Mode at high volumes before clipping, and it tracks even tighter than the Simul IIC+ in the low end in Lead Mode, all while brandishing a ferocious ‘claw’ above it all.
With a personality all its own, the IIC+ ‘HRG’ is well worth a test drive for those seeking impressive headroom for clean work, super-tight low end for modern gain sounds, and maximum girth and authority across any style. This ‘Hun’ is no joke!”
Take a deep dive with Doug West into the history of the MESA/Boogie Mark IIC+ HRG: HERE.
MARK IIC+ HRG
The Mark IIC + sits above the 1x12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet, both pictured in Wicker Grille.
In the history and lore of the Boogie® Mark IIC+, the HRG holds a firm and lofty place. While 75-watt Simul-Class™ builds surpassed both the Super Sixty™ and 100-Watt models in number during the original mid-80s Mark IIC+ production lifecycle, the original Mark I “HRG” format – Hundred-Watt/ Reverb/Graphic EQ, or Hun/Rev/Graph – was always classic Boogie.
With bold authority, maximum headroom, tight tracking low end, and detailed clarity, the HRG became a favorite among those seeking immense clean headroom as well as a truly commanding lead voice. As the years passed and styles evolved, the HRG’s aggressiveness for “crunch” rhythm work earned it a revered place in heavy rock and metal as well. A Mark IIC+ HRG has long been the model of choice for virtuoso guitarist John Petrucci throughout his career with Dream Theater and various solo projects. Hence, this 100-watt model provided the perfect platform for the signature JP2C that MESA partnered with John to create for his performance needs. With one of the most expressive preamps of all time and the mightiest of power sections, the HRG puts an exclamation point on the Mark IIC+ sound that is as exciting as it is unequaled. If your dream amp calls for total authority, knockout punch, and undeniable character, look no further than the mighty Mark IIC+ HRG.
1x12 VINTAGE THIELE CABINET
The Mark IIC + sits above the 1x12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet, both pictured in Wicker Grille.
Back by popular demand, fat tone’s secret weapon, the 1x12 Vintage Thiele Cabinet. The seen-everywhere companion to Boogie® combos and small heads in the day, this little cabinet set the tone for compact rigs, club to concert arena, throughout the decade of decadence. This compact, ported 1x12 extension—available in black vinyl grille and wicker grille—is the perfect enhancement to our latest “second build” Mark IIC+ or any Mark Series combo or head and open-back cab rig, adding focused fundamental and thumping, gut-punch low end to those exciting sounds.
While initially designed for an Electro-Voice® EVM12L speaker and introduced (under Boogie banners) in the early 80s, the Thiele’s signature sound and relevance are timeless for anyone wanting to add girth and strategic percussive lows regardless of the amp’s origin or stylistic leanings. Now loaded with our era-appropriate proprietary Celestion® C90 speaker, the 1x12 Thiele delivers more than ample low-end punch yet responds with a forgiving, overdrive-friendly voice that adds today’s heavier styles to its originally versatile can-do list.
“While we’re feeling nostalgic, we wanted to bring back one of the iconic 1x12 Boogie cabinets to celebrate the excitement surrounding the IIC+—the Boogie Thiele 1x12 Extension,” says Doug West, Director, Tone Lab, Gibson Amplifiers and MESA/Boogie. “This sealed and ported design became synonymous with huge tone in the ’80s, when players and artists alike discovered it was a secret weapon for delivering massive low end far beyond its physical footprint, along with a tight, punchy overall sound.
We’re excited to offer this mighty little cab once again, now paired with a more forgiving and era-appropriate speaker—our proprietary Celestion C90—to complement the ‘HRG’ IIC+ and other compact Boogie rigs, especially as easy transport becomes increasingly important to players.”
Bezard Guitars has introduced the Famine 6, a striking new electric guitar that is built to be as visually captivating as it is sonically versatile. Its name is derived from the second horseman of the apocalypse, and the Famine 6’s ultra-light, slim design is crafted to melt seamlessly into the player’s body.
The body of the Famine 6 features a carefully chosen blend of tonewoods. Its mahogany body is complemented by Port Orford Cedar decorative veneers, with a tobacco sunburst finish enriched by striking red and gold resin inlay. As each guitar is built to order, other wood options and finishes are available. The back is radiused at 47 inches, while the top carries a 23.5-inch projection radius that mirrors the compound fretboard radius. The neck is a graphite-reinforced mahogany laminate construction, built for strength and stability. It carries a 25.5”–25” multiscale rosewood fretboard with a 12”–20” compound radius, either stainless steel or phosphor bronze fret wire, and a custom brass or aluminum nut, combining durability, smooth playability, and elegant detail.
For electronics, the Famine 6 comes equipped with Fishman Fluence pickups, offering modern tonal versatility and clarity. Once again, as each guitar is custom built, other pickups are available depending on the player’s preference. These are wired to a three-way selector switch with volume and tone controls, providing players with dynamic tonal options suitable for a wide range of styles and genres.
The guitar is finished with gold Hipshot hardware that ensures stability, precision, and a refined aesthetic. Each Famine 6 ships in a form-fitting custom TKL hard case, designed to protect the instrument with the same care and craftsmanship invested in its construction.
The debut of the Famine 6 reflects the vision of luthier Will Bezard, founder of Bezard Guitars. Bezard’s journey began with studies at the Galloup School of Lutherie, followed by six years working alongside the legendary Rick Turner, where he refined his expertise in every facet of guitar construction. Today, he continues his work at Galloup while building his own guitars, blending technical precision with artistic expression. Bezard is dedicated to creating instruments that inspire, endure, and resonate with players on every level.
The Bezard Guitars Famine 6 is available for a base price of $7000 USD. For more information please visit www.bezardguitars.com
