Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.
2010 Summer Gear Road Trip Guide
Over the past few years, Premier Guitar has traveled across America documenting some of the coolest places gear is made, played, and displayed in our On Location series of videos—we’ve even made a stop in Germany. Now that the summer travel season is upon us, we’ve compiled your guide to these gear destinations to help you plan a guitar-ific vacation.
Petaluma - Mesa/Boogie Factory
Workshop & Design
Circuit-Board Assembly
Assembly & Hammer Test
Building Boogie Cabs
Custom Woods & Vinyl
Tolex Processes & Final Testing
Santa Rosa - EMG
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
EMG Studios/The Cube
Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz Guitars
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
Factory Tour, Part 3
Southern California
Santa Barbara - Seymour Duncan
Making Pickups, Part 1
Making Pickups, Part 2
Making Pickups, Part 3
Making Pickups, Part 4
Custom WInding, Part 1
Custom Winding, Part 2
El Cajon - Taylor Guitars
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
Houston, Texas
Diamond Amps - Factory Tour, Part 1
Diamond Amps - Factory Tour, Part 2
Blankenship Amps - Roy Blankenship's Workshop
Chicago, Illinois
Parker – Making an Electric
Washburn – Making an Electric
Washburn – Handmade Acoustics
Parker & Washburn – Paint Shop
Parker & Washburn – Final Assembly
Peterson Tuners – Under the Hood
Schroeder Guitar Repair & Custom Building
Specimen – Tube-Amp Building Seminar
Specimen – Specimen Gallery
Specimen – In-Progress Projects/Prototypes
Make’n Music – Tour, Part 1
Make’n Music – Tour, Part 2
Naperville Music
Berkley, Michigan
Egnater Amplification – Behind the Scenes
Meridian, Mississippi
Peavey Custom Shop – Tour, Part 1
Peavey Custom Shop – Tour, Part 2
Peavey Custom Shop – Tour, Part 3
Jimmie Rodgers Museum Tour
St. Wendel, Germany
Hughes & Kettner – Tour
Hughes & Kettner – Building Cabs
Hughes & Kettner – Testing Amps
Mid-Atlantic
Stevensville, Maryland - PRS
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
Factory Tour, Part 3
Factory Tour, Part 4
Building Acoustics
Private Stock Wood Tour
New Haven, Connecticut - Hamer
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
Factory Tour, Part 3
Factory Tour, Part 4
Nazareth, Pennsylvania - Martin
Factory Tour, Part 1
Factory Tour, Part 2
Factory Tour, Part 3
Factory Tour, Part 4
Museum, Part 1
Museum, Part 2
Museum, Part 3
New York, New York
West 48th Street Rudy’s Music Stop
West 48th Street Sam Ash Music
Memphis, Tennessee
Gibson Custom – ES Series, Bodies
Gibson Custom – ES Series, Necks
Gibson Custom – ES Series, Final Inspection
Stax Records Museum – Tour, Part 1
Stax Records Museum – Tour, Part 2
Sun Studio Tour
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.
The all-star producer invites John Bohlinger to his home studio for a glimpse of his most treasured gear.
Veteran producer and behind-the-scenes guitar superstar Dann Huff released his debut solo album, When Words Aren’t Enough, on May 30, but his career began long before that. He’s been making records and playing guitar for roughly 50 years, working with everyone from Taylor Swift to Rodney Crowell to Michael Jackson.
His home studio is where the magic happens, and for this Rig Rundown, he invited PG’s John Bohlinger over to talk about his career, his new record, and the best bits of gear he’s played along the way. Keep an eye out for our feature on Huff online and in our August print issue.
Huff had hardly played this 1964 FenderStratocaster for 20 years when he walked by it before recording his latest solo album and deciding it was time to reconnect. It was heavily modded by builder James Tyler.
The lower tone knob is also a push-pull switch to modify the pickup configurations; the middle tone knob is a mid-boost circuit, which can be toggled on or off with a push-pull function; and the volume pot is, well, just a volume pot. Huff explains the series of three switches, each assigned to one of the three pickups: “Down is louder, up is softer.”
Tyler Tone
This James Tyler Strat, built specially for Huff by Tyler, is an exacting copy of his ’64 Strat, complete with Tyler’s signature mods.
Revv Your Engine
Derek Eastveld, owner of Winnipeg, Manitoba-based amp company Revv, brought this Dynamis D40 head for Huff to try out, and it clicked instantly; Huff wrote a song on it for his solo record. It runs through a Little Walter 2x12 open-back cabinet.
Dann Huff’s Pedalboard
Huff doesn’t need a spaceship to get where he needs to go. Along with a TC Electronic PolyTune and a Lehle volume pedal, he runs a Vertex Effects Steel String (Slight Return Edition), Vertex Ultraphonix Mk II, Boss SD-2, TC Electronic Corona, Boss VB-2w, Mr. Black SuperMoon, Strymon Brigadier, and Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler.
It’s easy to characterize Chase Bliss' Joel Korte and “Analog” Mike Piera as pedal-designer opposites. Piera’s work is rooted in understanding what makes great vintage circuits special and building improved, refined, better-quality versions. Korte is often a maximalist (many sounds, many knobs, many possibilities) and an envelope-stretching modernist (unorthodox tones, digital control). But the two builders share much in common. Both are gifted designers, and each is tireless—perhaps obsessive—about chasing specific sounds. The intersections in their methodologies are embodied in the Brothers AM, a Chase Bliss/Analog Man collaboration based on the scarce and much-coveted Analog Man King of Tone dual-gain device.
The Brothers AM nails the creamy, clear, and agreeable essence of the KOT—at least what I know of it. Like many of you, I do not own a KOT and rely on the effusive raves from fellow musicians and what I’ve heard live and in the video sphere. But you don’t need a KOT to hear how good the Brothers AM is. It’s an excellent drive pedal by any comparison. The seamlessly integrated dual-circuit design means it moves readily from very subtle to very vicious tones. It’s even more versatile than its inspiration, thanks to the inclusion of an addictive, dynamite 2-position treble booster and DIP switches that expand the pedal’s tone palette and control options.
Rock-Solid Foundation
The original King of Tone pedal was inspired by a moddedMarshall BluesBreaker which an Analog Man client bought as a less-compressed, less-midrangey Ibanez TS9 alternative. By the time Piera completed the King of Tone, it didn’t sound much like a BluesBreaker. But it achieved other aims: It sounded natural and open and felt touch responsive. As the KOT evolved it effectively became two drive pedals in one—each of which could be configured as a boost, drive, or distortion. This KOT iteration is the foundation for the Brothers AM.
The many controls on most Chase Bliss pedals induce panic among some players. If you’re among them, Brothers AM won’t do much to calm your nerves—at least at first. In reality, though, the Brothers AM is easy to know. The six knobs are two identical sets of gain, volume, and tone controls for the two circuits. You switch each circuit between boost, OD, and distortion using two dedicated toggles on either side of the 3-position treble booster switch. The DIP switches on the pedal’s crown make it possible to add extra gain, reconfigure the footswitches for momentary bypass, repurpose volume and tone knobs as master volume and presence controls, save and switch between two additional presets, assign expression pedal control, and more.
Manifold Monster
One of the Brothers AM’s great strengths is its agreeable nature. It doesn’t seem to give a hoot what guitar or amp you throw in the pool with it. This easygoing personality makes it a great backline-surprise coping tool. Got a Telecaster and an AC15 conspiring to run you through with treble daggers? A dose of the Brothers AM’s soft-clipping OD and a dark tone setting will turn those sharp ends to honey without sapping too much energy. Need to slice through humbucker fog? A dollop of top end and a bump from the treble boost will cut through pea soup. Finding these agreeable baseline tones for a given guitar/amp combination is easy. But what’s most satisfying is shaping, refining, and recombining the Brother AM’s two basic voices into so many completely different identities.
Another great thing about the Brothers AM: You know how a lot of overdrives turn to mud at low amp volume? The Brothers AM sounds and feels great in this role. The range and interactivity between the tone and gain controls enables hot, lively tones and touch-responsive playing dynamics. The Rangemaster-voiced booster shines in this context, too. I got full-bodied, sparkling sounds from a 35-watt Fender Vibrolux whilst leaving room for an unamplified acoustic and voice in the same room. And it's easy to hear how Brothers AM will excel in small or home studios just as readily as it does in big rooms with big, loud amps.
If the Brothers AM has a drawback, it’s the heavily colored compression at the highest gain levels. But if the Brothers AM doesn’t shine brightest at these settings, the relative headroom and kinetic bump at most others underscore how you don’t need maximum gain to make your tone as hot as the hinges of Hades.
The Verdict
The Brothers AM makes almost any guitar or amp feel more alive and muscular, in shades ranging from a hint of heat and mass to fuzzy, fierce, and very loud. Though many stompbox clockers categorize the Brothers as a transparent overdrive, it does possess a compressed coloration throughout its range. It’s less cramped in the midrange than a vintage TS9, just as its creators intended. But if super-oxygenated boost-to-light-overdrive tones are the goal, you still might be better served by a good Klon clone or a preamp pedal that mixes in a clean signal. For anyone else, the Brothers AM is full of delights. It lends extra body and fullness to any tone recipe without stripping away instrument or amp personality. It’s effective in small rooms where you still want big-amp sound, but the visceral way it elevates a louder amp—especially with the thrilling treble booster in the mix—can make a player giddy. The Brothers AM, as suits its name, is like the kid at school that gets along with everyone. It doesn’t matter if you have a Rickenbacker and a Vox, an SG and a Deluxe Reverb, a baritone and a Marshall, or a decrepit old lipstick-pickup Silvertone and a Champ—all of them can sound and feel extra exciting along a spectrum that spans a gentle push and raging roar.
Xotic Effects newest version of the Vox-flavored AC Booster, the AC Booster V2, adds a second, footswitchable boost circuit (tweakable via a small, clear knob tucked among the four main-channel controls), plus a set of four DIP switches on the box’s righthand side which engage compression, modern or classic voicing, low-mid boost, and high-mid boost.
This new suite of features packs significant extra functionality into V2’s still-diminutive enclosure. The Vox sounds are all there, and with the high-mids juiced and treble nudged, you’re squarely in clanging Top Boost territory. The modern voicing trades some furry mid-range chunk for a bit more aggression and clarity, while the compression is useful for leveling leads and smoothing out unruly playing.
The boost knob is a little difficult to access, situated as it is in the center of the primary four-knob array. I don’t have particularly big fingers, but even I had trouble twiddling it. That’ll annoy some. But it’s a small price to pay for such a pedalboard-friendly footprint. The boost doses you with a healthy bump in level and gain that’s great for stand-out leads and solos. And speaking of standing out, the upper-mid boost switch is a treat. I found that creating a greater disparity between the high mids from the low mids made for a more precise and satisfying tone-shaping experience than I would experience using a standard mids knob.
There are no shortage of pedals that ape Vox AC30 mojo, but I haven’t seen many that will give you the range of utility that the AC Booster V2 will, for less for $200. Xotic nailed a smart and versatile redesign here.
Previously, John Bohlinger was curious about what active pickups could do for his anemic 1994 Stratocaster and EMG offered their drop-and-go Steve Lukather SL20 Pickguard set. JB was floored with the guitar's fresh voice and responsive dynamics he wanted to expand the active experiment to his beloved 2003 GibsonLes Paul. So we got a set of EMG Fat 55 Retro Active Humbuckers that required a full install and our luthier friend Dave Johnson walks us through the whole process before John got to test out his old friend's tonal makeover.
Learn more about EMG Fat 55 Retro Active Humbuckers here.
