Furniture-grade cab gurus Janice Cabs brought their first amp design to NAMM. The 10-watt, KT88-driven head features a single-ended, class-A power section, an EF86-driven preamp, and three controls: a gain knob that goes from triode to pentode mode, a tone knob, and a level control for the 3-spring reverb. It goes for $1,800 street.
Blackbird Pedalboards' ultra-portable new Feather Board accommodates five or six stomps, has room for a regulated power supply, comes in four amp-style coverings (fawn, black, red, or tweed), and includes an ATA flight case—all for $119!
Guitar Grip's latest instrument hanger, the Zombie, features composite construction and a non-slip inner surface for a street price of $40.
Roger Sadowsky is showcasing his Japan-made MetroLine of basses, which have fixed specs including rosewood fretboards and alder and maple ash bodies. He also brought several custom basses from his NYC line (including a Will Lee signature with cocobolo appointments) to Summer NAMM.
B.A. Ferguson Guitars' latest, the WKR-PTOP-P, features a Honduran mahogany body and neck, a padauk cap, a wenge fretboard, a 25.063" scale, and Kent Armstrong pickups. It streets for $3,250.
Henretta Engineering made its first NAMM appearance at #SummerNAMM, and their MO is minuscule. They've got an entire line of (roughly) 2"x2" set-and-forget stomps with internal switches and trim pots. They go for $125 each, and the line includes a compressor, clean boost, overdrive, octave, fuzz, tremolo, Echoplex-style preamp, and auto filter. You can also get multiple boxes in a single enclosure (the shown six-effect box is $500).
TC Electronic resumes its mini-pedal onslaught with diminutive new versions of the Flashback delay, Corona chorus, Shaker vibrato, and Vortex flanger. The latter three are $99, the Flashback is $119. All of them are TonePrint enabled, which means you can switch sounds and features—including the functions of the Mini's bigger cousins—via download.
There's no shortage of folks hankering for an affordable Taylor 12-string. This year they delivered with the 150e. The Sitka Spruce and laminate sapele dread sounds classically Taylor and is exceedingly easy to play. One of the real treats of the show so far.
Luthier Jeff Figley of King Blossom Guitars unveiled his new line of RPG-RS and Model 1M hybrid crossover guitars with a unique soundport system that allows for an acoustic resonance in an electric guitar. His RPG-RS has no tailpiece (left) but the strings attach directly to the carved top, a 6-way toggle switch, and LED lighting along the fretboard.
While the Gibson ES Les Paul isn't the first semi hollow Les Paul, this new model may be the most realized manifestation of the form. The center block is maple, which helps impart a cool high mid presence. But the guitar also has the smoky, dark, bluesy tones 335 players love. In short, this thing has range.
Cusack Music brought three new boxes to Summer NAMM: They've resurrected the Hellhound amp (previously available from Reverend), but the Schizo voicing switch is now footswitchable and power can go from 20 to 60 watts. The head streets for $1,300, the combo $1,500. Meanwhile, the Yummy Delay and Tasty Whirl are simplified versions of the Tap-a-Delay and Tap-a-Whirl (respectively). Each has available tap tempo via an RCA jack, and they go for $200 a pop.
Martin's D-28 Louvin Brothers Custom Signature Edition features the cover art from their "Satan Is Real" album. The Summer NAMM show special dreadnought has a limited run of 50 and was designed by Chris Martin, who was inspired by a Louvin Brothers T-shirt he bought at Ernest Tubb's record store in Nashville. It features a Sitka spruce top and East Indian rosewood back and sides.
The Rolling Bender brought its cool non-invasive bender units to Summer NAMM. The palm-activated benders range from $150-$165 each, and they replace Strat-, Tele-, and Tune-o-matic-style bridge saddles with no other mods required. They also offer a belt-loop-puller version ($98) that requires a 1/2" hole in the body.
Western swing legend Ray Benson told us his new signature Eastman Thinline 486 is the dream guitar he's been seeking for 40 years. No shiny things for this Texan: He opted for a red matte finish on his double-cutaway deluxe laminate maple axe with a Lollar El Rayo in the neck and a Lollar Low Wind Imperial in the bridge.
Daredevil Pedals brought two new silicon-transistor fuzzes to Summer NAMM: The Wolf is a Fuzz Face-inspired design with an EQ-adjusting toggle, while the Nova is inspired by '60s Tonebenders. Both are true-bypass and go for $135 street.
Devilcat Amplifiers' new Jimmy Jr. is a 50-watt, 6L6-powered 1x12 with two footswitchable channels, and a cascading gain section that can be added to either. It's loaded with a Celestion Vintage 30, and also features a 3-spring MOD reverb—all for $1,299.
UK-based acoustic luthier Faith Guitars was established in 2002 but is exhibiting for the first time at Summer NAMM. The guitars feature a solid-wood construct with a bolted-on neck and are designed by Patrick James Eggle and handmade in workshops in Indonesia. The Neptune Hi-Gloss flagship model has a solid Indonesian rosewood back and sides, European Englemann spruce top, and Macassar Ebony fretboard with flame maple binding. MSRP: $1,229.
Britain’s rock royalty prized Tony Zematis’s original guitars. And though Tony passed, the guitars that still bear his name have stayed true to his sense of craft and Brit irreverence. The latest incarnations, the Generation II, are the most affordable Zemaitis yet. This Metal Front specimen has a street price of $2,400. It's not cheap, but it's a deal for a guitar that looks and feels so genuinely like a classic Zemaitis.
Jimmy Carbonetti builds his Gauntlet model in his shop on the Lower East Side. The German carve body is hand carved from alder and the humbuckers are hand wound in Jimmy's shop on a Singer sewing machine. In fact there's almost nothing that Jimmy didn't do by hand, save for the Callahan bridge, Bigsby, and tuners. Definitely of the coolest guitars on the NAMM show floor.
Valvetrain Amps brought two new amps to Summer NAMM. The Charleston-HP (right) is a 40-watt version of the previous 20-watt Charleston. It's a 6L6-powered, modernized take on a tweed Fender Deluxe with an Eminence Texas Heat speaker. The Brandywine bass head is a 6L6-powered, 50-watt, updated take on the classic Ampeg B-15 "fliptop" amp with tons of features for both modern and vintage-style players.
Blue Note Woodworks is a first-time exhibitor at Summer NAMM and brought this Acousta-Electra Crossover (top right), which is a 2-in-1 electric/acoustic stereo guitar. It features K & K acoustic pickups under the bridge, an Orford Curly Cedar top, a swamp ash body bound in black, and all black hardware. Blue Note also has a nylon string model and several basses at the show, including this electric bass with upright voicing (left).
The SpiderCapo from OMG Music is a guitar capo that allows a player to capo each string individually, and works as an alternative tunings capo or partial capo. You can play behind the capo, and it's a good experimental tool for a player to explore hundreds of alternate turnings.
Lift up the hood of the Ubermut overdrive (yep, you can lift it just like a car hood) and you'll find a clever little slot that enables you to switch out diodes (which you can buy from Ubermut.) Predictably, the sounds on tap are myriad—from smooth overdrive to nasty germanium fuzz tones, making this one of the more flexible drive pedals you'll ever tinker with. A fair price too at 185 bucks.
Michael Kelly Guitars announced a cool new partnership with legendary luthier Rick Turner that's putting Korean-made versions of his Renaissance semi-hollow guitars in players' hands for $699. The S6 guitars are available in steel-string (shown), nylon-string, and bass models, with the bass and steel models having okoumé tops, and the nylon having a cedar top. All feature okoumé bodies, rosewood-topped mahogany necks, a bone nut, and D-TAR electronics.
St. Blues new Scoundrel is what the fellas from Memphis call a “budget boutique” guitar and the description is apt. $1,349 gets you a a beautiful alder solidbody loaded with Kent Armstrong pickups (the humbucker in the bridge is coil spilttable.) you can also get the all-maple neck seem here or maple with a Pao Ferro fretboard. A smooth player, this one.
Martin really went to town with the CS-GP-14. The Grand Performance body is beautifully proportioned (fingerstylists are going to freak out over how this guitar feels.) The three-piece back is Guatemalan Rosewood and cocobolo, and the top is European Spruce. Nods to contemporary boutique lutherie-think come in the form of a soundport on the upper bout and rosette and inlay that are marked departures from Martin's traditional book of tricks. Only 50 of 'em and by all accounts, they're going fast!
Lace Music brought an exciting new prewired pickguard invention to Summer NAMM: a 5-way solderless system that allows for easy pickup rewiring without a mess. It's an equalizer with wire clasps located underneath the pickguard that you can swap around in seconds. Players with no modding experience can use the system with little effort. "The only thing you need is the ability to play the guitar," says Jeff Lace.
