Builder Profile: Seymour Duncan's Custom Shop Queen - Maricela “MJ” Juarez
Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Manager has wound pickups for a who’s-who of guitar gods—Clapton, Gibbons, Van Halen, Holdsworth, Harrison, and many more. But she’s revered for more than her tonal sensibilities.
Maricela “MJ” Juarez manning her pickup winding station
“The heart and soul of your guitar has to connect with your own heart and soul,” says Seymour Duncan Custom Shop manager Maricela “MJ” Juarez.
Juarez has worked alongside Seymour Duncan for more than 30 years, establishing herself as the legendary pickup builder’s most trusted collaborator. She’s also become a custom pickup builder to the stars, helping the guitar’s most demanding tone junkies connect better with their instruments. Some say she’s wound more pickups heard on gold and platinum records than anyone. Her clientele includes Billy Gibbons, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Eddie Van Halen, Vince Gill, Slash, James Taylor, Peter Frampton, Warren DeMartini, and Steve Miller—not to mention countless discerning players around the globe.
Juarez began her Duncan tenure as a production-floor pickup winder, but Seymour eventually asked her to manage the growing Custom Shop. It’s expanded so fast that they recently brought in Seymour’s son Derek to help manage. Nowadays they’re only partially joking when they refer to Juarez as the Queen of the Custom Shop. But like so many things in life and music, her path to pickup-winding royalty was anything but what she’d planned.
Tortillas vs. Tone
Just how unlikely is her story? Rewind to early 1983, when Juarez’s then-job moved to North Carolina, while she chose to stay in Santa Barbara, California, with her new husband and their five-month-old baby.
“I was in my apartment making homemade flour tortillas when my neighbor knocked on the door,” she recalls. “She asked for a ride to drop off a job application. I said, ‘Sure,’ but then she saw that I was making tortillas and said, ‘I’m so sorry—I didn’t know you were busy.’ I told her, ‘Don’t worry—I can finish them later, and they’ll be warm for dinner.’”
When they arrived at the neighbor’s hoped-for place of employment—you guessed it, the Seymour Duncan factory—the friend listed Juarez as a reference. Inside, Juarez recognized several employees and chatted with them before heading home to finish her tortillas. But then the phone rang. It was the Duncan shop supervisor with a job offer.
“I started laughing,” Juarez remembers. “I said, ‘Excuse me, you’ve got the wrong person—I was only the driver.’ He said, ‘I know, but I would love for you to come work for us.’ I said, ‘But I didn’t fill out an application! I’m the wrong person!’ but he just kept saying, ‘I know!’”
Day 1: Pickups for Who?
Given the prestige of Seymour Duncan—the man and the company—it’s hard to imagine any pickup winder experiencing a first day on the job like Juarez’s. Not only did she come to the factory not knowing exactly what she’d be crafting, but she also had no idea her very first project would be for one of the world’s most revered musicians: Jimmy Page.
The former Led Zeppelin guitarist was about to embark on a tour and needed new pickups for one of his Les Pauls. “I cannot forget those humbuckers,” Juarez says. “The DC resistances were 8.2 kHz on the neck and 8.8 on the bridge.”
Despite her knack for recalling specs decades after the fact, Juarez is a notorious note taker. She’s chronicled just about everything she’s made at Seymour Duncan, both in general production and in the Custom Shop.
“I started taking notes so I wouldn’t make mistakes,” she says. “I noticed that Seymour also takes notes of almost everything. He said, ‘You take notes? I do it the same way. Look, let me show you!’ That’s when he started showing me notes from when he made pickups for Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton, Eddie Van Halen, Elliot Easton, Rick Nielsen, and David Gilmour. Seymour liked the idea that I was following in his footsteps on the note taking.”
Juarez says it even became competitive: “I used to say, ‘Okay, Seymour, here’s a customer request,’ and I’d write down my specs without showing him, and he’d write down his. We’d put them together and they’d be the same!”
Between Seymour, Juarez, and others, note taking at the Duncan Custom Shop is pretty extreme. Many large file cabinets hold records of everything they’ve ever made—thousands of full pages mixed in with scraps of paper scrawled with specs.
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MJ and Seymour Duncan
Like a Prayer
Under Seymour’s tutelage, Juarez soon learned every aspect of pickup engineering so well that she could tailor units to any customer’s request. Once she knows what kind of guitar you have and the sound you’re seeking, she can prescribe the right magnet type (rough cast, sand cast, or ground smooth), its ideal strength, its wire and bobbin materials, and everything else needed to make the concept a reality.
She throws out a hypothetical: “Suppose I’m talking to someone with a weird request, like, ‘I want a DynaSonic-style pickup to fit into my Gretsch Filter’Tron.’ I have to clear my mind and connect with the caller. Even if we’re talking on the phone, I’m there with them. I might put them on speakerphone while I look for bobbins and calipers, and then measure to see if I need to cut the bobbins or make them taller so I can have enough windings. Finally I say, ‘Yes, I can do it.’”
Though the Duncan Custom Shop has been referred to by that name only in recent years, Juarez contends that custom pickups have always been part of the picture. “I started off with the Antiquities,” she says, referring to Duncan’s highly regarded line of cosmetically accurate vintage pickups. “For Seymour and me, the word ‘vintage’ is like a prayer your grandma taught you. The reason it’s grandma’s ‘prayer’ and not grandma’s ‘recipe’ is because the word ‘vintage’ is holy. You have to go down to the details and keep those things as original as possible.”
She returns to the DynaSonic scenario as an illustration: “If you compare a new DeArmond DynaSonic to an original, you’ll see that it doesn’t have the little soldered line connection that’s supposed to be on the bottom. They don’t take the time to find the parts to do it the original way, but we do. Seymour and I try to make the pickups the way they were made. We tried to find the right little brass pieces for the DynaSonics, but they don’t sell them anymore. So we had to find someone who could tool them up and make them for us.”
You can see why Seymour trusts Juarez—she gets tone freaks. “When you guys have your guitar, you treasure that instrument like it’s part of you,” she says. “It’s part of your heart. It’s part of who you guys are.”
Clone Wars
Considering Seymour Duncan’s roster of famous users, it should come as no surprise that the Custom Shop must sometimes recreate its own past work. For instance, Slash recently requested a recreation of the Alnico Pro II pickups in his legendary Les Paul replica when a new Les Paul he was breaking in didn’t have the sound of the original.
Juarez took the call. “The first thing I asked was, ‘What are the woods in the new guitars?’” she recalls. “Then I knew how to do it.”
Asked how she knew so quickly, she replies, “We know the guitar components and we just have to play with them. The finish might not be the same, the wood might not be as dry or as old, but there are ways to complement the magnets. I was able to deliver him the old tone from his old Alnico Pros using current technology.”
Another recent challenge came when Joe Bonamassa requested replacements for his ’59 Gibson Les Paul. “We took those pickups apart in order to rework them,” she explains. “When we made the replica, the neck position had to be weakened so much that Seymour called it ‘the Weaky.’ We ended up using alnico 3 magnets for the bridge pickup. When we presented those pickups to Joe, he was amazed by how close we came to the tone of the original.”
It probably didn’t hurt that Juarez and the Custom Shop team have an original Leesona winding machine from the Gibson factory at their disposal. However, so much has changed since the early days of the famed PAF pickup that there’s far more to the equation than the right machine. Juarez provides an example: “Without us knowing, manufacturers change the plastic we use for bobbins, or change the material used for spacers.” Even slight changes to the small components sourced from third-party manufacturers can alter a pickup’s sound, so the Duncan crew must constantly listen and take stock.
Thankfully, for many cloning projects the Custom Shop crew can simply consult their file cabinets. Next to the ones filled of notes are others full of duplicates of every pickup made for famous clients. They’re encased in Plexiglas boxes bearing names like Rick Nielsen, Richie Sambora, Eric Clapton, John Fogerty, James Taylor, Allan Holdsworth, Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, and Carlos Santana.
Pulling one out what looks like an old Gretsch pickup, Juarez says it’s one she recreated for George Harrison. She indicates a small screw on the faded gold cover, “It’s rusted right there—this screw is a little more rusted than that one.” Another box holds the prototype recreation of Eddie Van Halen’s original Frankenstein humbucker. “The original pickup has this dust,” Juarez says, pointing out the grooves from the strings bottoming out on the forward bobbin. “We had to deliver all that because it was expected to look exactly like the original. But the original tone has to be there too.”
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MJ adjusts a polepiece.
Listening to the Little Guys
Despite Seymour Duncan’s reputation for great vintage-style pickups, the company has an admirable record of staying up to date in its online endeavors. The seymourduncan.com website offers several ways to compare pickups, including ingenious at-a-glance icons and streaming audio. The site also boasts an active forum where the company occasionally invites participants to help design Custom Shop models. The BroBucker, a super-hot PAF-style pickup with a DC resistance of 10k, is one such design. Who worked with the forum users on this project? You guessed it.
“The BroBucker got its name because it was designed by the bros of the forum,” Juarez explains. Other forum designs include the Crazy 8, which has alnico 8 magnets, and the Fugly Bucker, which is half PAF-style with parallel axis poles, and half blade-style.
If you’ve spent much time in online forums, you’d probably be surprised if there weren’t heated debates on the Duncan forum. One intensely argued subject is whether older JB models sound different from new ones, even though they share the same specs.
Introduced 35 years ago, the JB is Seymour Duncan’s most popular production pickup. But even the JB has been subject to the types of supplier-driven changes previously mentioned. Even though the Custom Shop offers the Antiquity JB with the original specs andoriginal parts, some forum users insist that older JBs sound different, and perhaps better.
Many of the old JBs in question were wound and assembled by Juarez. How can you tell? Each Duncan pickup from that era had a decal with a two-letter abbreviation denoting its model, (“DD” for Duncan Distortion, “CD” for Duncan Custom, and so on.) The initial of the builder’s last name follows the model shorthand. Vintage JBs built by Juarez were labeled “JBJ,” and some believe there’s magic in these particular pickups, which command a high price on the used market.
Here’s Juarez’s take on the controversy: “I don’t know magic, but it could be one of three things: We changed from the long-legged bottom plate to the short-legged one. [Ed. note. This was primarily to accommodate shallow pickup-cavity routes.] We also used to use butyrate bobbins like the ones in old PAFs, but at some point the vendor didn’t have the material anymore. Also, our old magnets used to be rough-cast, but then somebody switched vendors.” Standard JBs are now made with ground magnets, polycarbonate bobbins, and short-legged baseplates.
But Juarez is quick to add that those components might not even factor into the sound of those old JBJs. “It’s mainly how you wind those bobbins,” she says. “The trick might be in winding it kind of tight. That’s why we still have our handwinding machines in the Custom Shop. We have the scatterwinding machine, and we have one of the newer machines. We know that a pickup wound on the newer machine is going to sound different from a pickup with a scatterwound bobbin.”
Even allowing for those differences, Juarez insists there’s too much mythology surrounding the JBJs, and she plans to conduct a shootout between the three different versions. “We’re going to do a sound test,” she says. “I intend to compare one of the old JBs, one made the new MJ way, and a regular production model. It’s on my to-do list.”
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All About the Connections
As serious as Juarez is about her work for players of all stripes around the world, she wouldn’t be where she is now if there weren’t more to her than that. One thing that sets her apart is how she goes out of her way for both paying customers and the co-workers she’s come to regard as family—including her famous boss. “Seymour is not like a big brother—he’s more like a little brother,” she laughs. “I know when it’s time for Seymour’s medicine, when he needs to eat, when he needs to go to the doctor. I spend more time here than I do at home. There’s a lot of love and devotion.”
Juarez says she learned her nurturing ways from her mother, who always liked to feed people. As you might imagine, the list of people Juarez has fed includes some of the players she’s wound pickups for, like Eddie Van Halen. “He wasn’t ‘Eddie’ at that time—he was just somebody seeking his tone, but then he became another part of my family,” she says. “He was sitting there eating my tamales, and he says, ‘MJ, where is the salsa?’ I told him, ‘I don’t make tamales to eat with salsa, but I have Tapatio.’”
The regard in which people hold Juarez isn’t confined to her Seymour Duncan family and their clients. Many pickup aficionados compare her to Abigail Ybarra, the revered pickup builder who retired in May of this year after more than 50 years at Fender. While Seymour has long been Juarez’s mentor and “little brother,” Ybarra has been her role model. “She’s a lady who did a lot for the music industry,” says Juarez. “There’s no competition between us because she was there before I was. The only difference is that she mainly did Strats and Teles. She was amazed when she came here and saw how I could do those pickups and many more. Abigail has all my love and respect as a role model, as a human being, and as a lady.”
When it comes to just about every aspect of Juarez, you can measure her success by the quality of her connections—be they between people, or between wires and pole pieces. “I believe in getting into the heart of the individual and finding the tone they are seeking,” she says. “I want to connect with the hearts and souls of musicians through communication, truth, and honesty.”
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This wonky Zim-Gar was one of many guitars sold by importer Gar-Zim Musical Instruments, operated by Larry Zimmerman and his wife.
The 1960s were strange days indeed for import guitars, like this cleaver-friendly Zim-Gar electric.
Recently I started sharing my work office with a true gem of a guy … one of the nicest fellas I’ve ever come across. If you’ve been following my column here, you might remember my other work mate Dylan, who is always telling me about new, fad-type things (like hot Honey guitars) and trying to convince me to use AI more. (What can I say, he’s a millennial.) But Steve, on the other hand, is about 10 years my senior and is a native New Yorker—Brooklyn actually, from the Canarsie neighborhood. Steve is a retired teacher and spent many years teaching in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, and man, he has some amazing stories.
Mostly we talk about music and sports (he’s exiled here among us Philadelphia sports fans) and he’s just endlessly interesting to me. He has a huge appetite and can eat a whole pizza. When he talks, he sounds like one of the Ramones and he still has an apartment in Rockaway Beach. We both love Seinfeld and, like George Costanza, Steve knows where all the great bathrooms are across New York City. Since he’s been added to my circle (and is such a mensch), I decided I should work him into a column.
So here’s the connection: Back in the day there were many American importers, dealers, and wholesalers. A lot of them were based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but I only know of one guitar importer located in Brooklyn: Gar-Zim Musical Instruments. The company was run by Larry Zimmerman and his wife, and the couple had some success importing and selling Japanese guitars and drums. I used to see early Teisco imports with the Zim-Gar badge, which was the brand name of Gar-Zim. I’ve also seen Kawai guitars with the Zim-Gar label, but the Zimmerman’s seemed to sell cheaper and cheaper gear as the ’60s wore on, including the piece you see here.
“This build reminds me of the cutting boards I used to make in wood shop back in my high school days.”
The model name and factory origin of this guitar is a mystery to me, but this build reminds me of the cutting boards I used to make in wood shop back in my high school days. The guitar is just flat across the top and back, with absolutely no contouring or shaping. Its offset body is plywood with a thin veneer on the top and back. From a distance this guitar actually looks kind of nice, but up close you can see a rather crude and clunky instrument that offers little flexibility and playability. The non-adjustable bridge is off center, as is the tremolo. It was really hard to get this guitar playing well, but in the end it was worth it, because the pickups were the saving grace. Another example of gold-foils, these units sound strong and raw. The electronics consist of an on/off switch for each pickup and a volume and tone knob. The tuners are okay, and the headstock design is reminiscent of the Kay “dragon snout” shape of the mid to late ’60s, which is where I would place the birthdate of this one, probably circa 1966. Everything is just so goofy about this build—even the upper strap button is located on the back of the neck. It reminds me of that era when simple wood factories that were making furniture were tasked with building electric guitars, and they simply didn’t know what they were doing. So, you get oddities like this one.
Gar-Zim continued to sell guitars and other musical instruments through the 1970s and possibly into the ’80s. I once even saw a guitar with the label Lim-Gar, which is totally puzzling. I think there should’ve been a Stee-Gar designation for my new buddy Steve-o! Yes, good readers, with guitars and me, there are always just a few degrees of separation.
See and hear Taylor’s Legacy Collection guitars played by his successor, Andy Powers.
Last year, Taylor Guitars capped its 50th Anniversary by introducing a new guitar collection celebrating the contributions of co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug to the guitar world. The Legacy Collection revives five of Bob Taylor’s classic acoustic models, curated by the legendary luthier and innovator himself. “To imagine that we’re doing guitars that harken to our past, our present and our future all at the same time,” Bob says, “I really like that.”
In developing the collection, Bob preserved the essence of his originals while integrating performance and playability upgrades introduced during his tenure as designer-in-chief. “It’s an up-to-date version of what those guitars would be,” Bob explains, “but with the same sound.”
Visually, these guitars feel classic—clean, understated and unmistakably Taylor. While Bob’s original aesthetic preferences are showcased in his Legacy models, the nod to the past runs deeper than trade dress.
From his earliest builds, Bob favored slim-profile necks because he found them easier to play. That preference set a design precedent that established Taylor’s reputation for smooth-playing, comfortable necks. Legacy models feature slim mahogany necks built with Taylor's patented New Technology (NT) design. “My first neck was a bolted-on neck but not an NT neck,” Bob says. “These are NT necks because it’s a better neck.” Introduced in 1999, the NT neck allowed for unprecedented micro-adjustability while offering a consistent, hand-friendly Taylor playing experience.
What makes this collection unique within the Taylor line is Bob’s use of his X-bracing architecture, favoring his time-tested internal voicing framework over more recent Taylor bracing innovations to evoke a distinctive tone profile. Since Andy Powers—Taylor’s current Chief Guitar Designer, President and CEO—debuted his patented V-Class bracing in 2018, V-Class has become a staple in Taylor’s premium-performance guitars. Still, Bob’s X-bracing pattern produces a richly textured sound with pleasing volume, balance and clarity that long defined the Taylor voice. All Legacy models feature LR Baggs VTC Element electronics, which Bob says “harkens back to those days.”
The team at Taylor thought the best way to demonstrate the sound of the Legacy guitars was to ask Andy Powers, Bob’s successor, to play them. A world-class luthier and musician, Andy has spent the past 14 years leading Taylor’s guitar innovation. In addition to V-Class bracing, his contributions include the Grand Pacific body style, the ultra-refined Builder’s Edition Collection, and most recently, the stunning Gold Label Collection.
Below you’ll find a series of videos that feature Powers playing each Legacy model along with information about the guitars.
Legacy 800 Series Models
First launched in 1975, the 800 Series was Taylor’s first official guitar series. Today, it remains home to some of the brand’s most acclaimed instruments, including the flagship 814ce, Builder’s Edition 814ce and new Gold Label 814e.
The Legacy 800 Series features the 810e Dreadnought and two Jumbos: the 6-string 815e and 12-string 855e. Each model serves up a refined version of the Dreadnought and Jumbo body shapes Bob inherited from Sam Radding—the original owner of the American Dream music shop where Bob and Kurt first met. “I was making my guitars in the molds that Sam had made at American Dream,” Bob recalls. “There was a Jumbo and a Dreadnought. That’s all we had.”
All three Legacy 800 Series guitars feature one of Bob’s favorite tonewood combos. Solid Indian rosewood back and sides are paired with a Sitka spruce top, yielding warm lows, clear trebles and a scooped midrange.
Aesthetic appointments include a three-ring abalone rosette, mother-of-pearl Large Diamond inlays, white binding around the body and fretboard, and Bob’s “straight-ear” peghead design. Both Jumbo models also showcase a mustache-style ebony bridge—a nod to Bob’s early Jumbo builds.
Legacy 810e
The 810 Dreadnought holds a special place in Bob Taylor’s heart. “My first 810, the one I made for myself, was a thrilling guitar for me to make,” he says. “It’s the one and only guitar I played. It didn’t matter how many guitars we made at Taylor, that’s the one I took out and played.” The Legacy 810e brings back that bold, room-filling Dreadnought voice along with the easy playability expected from a Taylor.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 810e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 855e
Taylor’s first 12-strings found an audience in 1970s Los Angeles. “I was making guitars that would find their way to McCabe’s in Santa Monica and Westwood Music,” Bob says, “and these guitars were easy to play. Twelve-strings were a popular sound in that music. It was a modern country/folk/rock music genre that was accepting our guitars because they were easy to play. They also liked the sound of them because our guitars were easier to record.” The Legacy 855e, with its resonant Jumbo body, slim neck and gorgeous octave sparkle, carries that tradition forward.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 855e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 815e
The Legacy 815e revives Taylor’s original Jumbo 6-string, delivering a big, lush sound with beautifully blooming overtones.
Legacy Grand Auditoriums
In the early 1990s, Bob Taylor heard a consistent refrain from dealers: “Not everybody wants a dreadnought guitar anymore.” Players were asking for something with comparable volume but different proportions—something more comfortable, yet still powerful. This feedback inspired Bob to design a new body style with more elegant curves, more accommodating proportions and a balanced tonal response. The result was the Grand Auditorium, which Taylor introduced in 1994 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Thanks to its musical versatility and easy playability, Bob’s Grand Auditorium attracted a wide variety of players. “We came into our own with our Grand Auditorium,” he says. “People were describing it as ‘all around.’ It’s a good strummer and good for fingerstyle, but it’s not totally geared toward strumming or totally geared toward fingerstyle.” Also referred to as the “Swiss-Army Knife” of guitars or the “Goldilocks” guitar, the GA quickly became a favorite among guitarists across playing styles, musical genres and different playing applications including recording and live performance. “That guitar made studio work successful,” Bob says. It gained a wider fanbase with the debut of the “ce” version, which introduced a Venetian cutaway and onboard electronics. “That became one of our hallmarks,” says Bob. “If you want to plug in your guitar, buy a Taylor.”
Today, the Grand Auditorium is Taylor’s best-selling body shape.
The Legacy Collection features two cedar-top Grand Auditoriums inspired by past favorites: the mahogany/cedar 514ce and rosewood/cedar 714ce. Both models incorporate Bob’s original X-bracing pattern for a tonal character reminiscent of their 1990s and 2000s counterparts. Shared aesthetic details include a green abalone three-ring rosette, ebony bridge pins with green abalone dots, a faux-tortoiseshell pickguard and Taylor gold tuning machines.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 815e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 514ce
The Legacy 514ce features solid mahogany back and sides paired with a Western Red cedar top, yielding a punchy midrange and dry, woody sonic personality that pairs beautifully with cedar’s soft-touch sensitivity and warmth. It’s a standout choice for fingerstyle players and light strummers who crave nuance and depth. Distinct visual details include faux-tortoise body and fretboard binding, black-and-white top trim, and mother-of-pearl small diamond fretboard inlays.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 514ce | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 714ce
The Legacy 714ce also features a cedar top, this time matched with solid Indian rosewood back and sides. The result is a richly textured sound with deep lows, clear trebles and a warm, mellow response. Inspiring as it is, this specific wood pairing isn’t currently offered in any other standard Taylor model. Additional aesthetic details include green abalone dot fretboard inlays, black body and fretboard binding, and black-and-white “pinstripe” body purfling.
While the Legacy Collection spotlights Taylor’s past, newer models from the Gold Label, Builder’s Edition and Somos Collections show the company’s legacy is always evolving. Explore the Legacy Collection at taylorguitars.com or visit your local authorized Taylor dealer.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 714ce | Playthrough Demo
The Oceans Abyss expands on Electro-Harmonix’s highly acclaimed reverb technology to deliver a truly immersive effects workstation. The pedal is centered around dual reverb engines that are independently programmable with full-stereo algorithms including Hall, Spring, Shimmer and more. Place these reverbs into a customizable signal path with additional FX blocks like Delay, Chorus, Tremolo, or Bit Crusher for a completely unique soundscape building experience.
Electro-Harmonix has paved the way for powerful, accessible reverbs since the release of the original Holy Grail and now we’ve pushed the envelope deeper with the fully-equipped Oceans Abyss. Featuring a customizable signal path with up to 8 effects blocks, the Oceans Abyss can be configured as individual reverb, modulation, EQ, delay, bit crusher, saturation or volume effects, or as countless combinations for incredibly creative effect shaping. From a simple Spring reverb to a lush stereo field featuring stereo hall and shimmer reverbs, chorus, delay, overdrive, and tremolo, you can go from surf to shoegaze instantly, without breaking a sweat.
Deep parameter editing is accessible via the high-visibility OLED display with multiple graphical views and easy-to-read designs. Expression/CV control over nearly every parameter gives artful control of your effects and dynamics. Fully-stereo I/O plus an FX Loop allows for use with any instrument, recording set up, or live rig. 128 programmable presets via onboard footswitching or MIDI ensure perfect recall in all performance situations. MIDI IN/OUT ports with MIDI IN support of PC, CC, and Tempo Clock expand the already immense talents of the Oceans Abyss. Connect with UBS-C to Windows or Mac for effects editing, preset management, and more with the free EHXport™ app (coming soon).
- Two Stereo Reverbs available at once, each fully pannable in the stereo field
- 10 reverb types to choose from: Room, Hall, Spring, Plate, Reverse, Dynamic, Auto-Infinite, Shimmer, Polyphonic, Resonant
- Additional FX blocks: Delay (Digital, Analog and Tape emulations), Tremolo, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Graphic EQ, Saturation, Bit Crusher, External FX Loop, Volume
- Create custom signal path routing with up to 8 effects blocks. Two blocks may be re-verb, the rest may be any of the additional FX blocks.
- Infinite reverb sustain with the press of a footswitch
- Stereo Audio I/O
- Stereo FX Loop routing on TRS Jacks
- Dual action footswitches allow for momentary or latching use
- Easily enable or disable tails
- 128 fully customizable presets
- All controls can be saved to presets
- Dive deep into global and preset settings to set up Oceans Abyss for your specific needs
- Illuminated slide pots and buttons
- High-visibility OLED graphical display
- Multiple graphical views: Signal Path, Performance, Settings, Physical, Explorer
- Easy-to-navigate menu system
- Ergonomic NavCoder knob allows rotary and directional navigation through menus
- EXPRESSION / CV input to control nearly any parameter in any FX block
- Footswitch input allows for adding up to three external footswitches, each assigna-ble to a number of functions
- MIDI In and Out. MIDI IN supports PC, CC (over nearly every available parameter), and Tempo Clock
- USB-C port to connect to Windows or Mac and interface with EHXport™ app (coming soon)
- 96kHz / 24-bit sample rate conversion
- Supplied with 9.6VDC / 500mA power supply
Our columnist’s silver-panel Fender Bandmaster.
How this longstanding, classic tube amp design evolved from its introduction in 1953.
I have a silver-panel Bandmaster Reverb that I don’t think I’ve talked about enough in this column. It’s one of the most versatile and flexible amps I own, so I use it for everything. It’s portable, has tube-driven reverb and tremolo, and has a full set of EQ knobs including the critical bright switch, which we discussed the importance of earlier this year (“How to ‘Trebleshoot’ a Vintage Fender Amp,” March 2025). The amp is not only pedal-friendly; the flexible 4-ohm output impedance will handle almost all speaker configurations and sound any way you’d like. Let’s take a deeper look at the Fender Bandmaster amp and walk through its development through the years.
The first Bandmaster was introduced in 1953 as a wide-panel tweed amp with Fender’s 5C7 circuit. This rare combo was loaded with a single 15" Jensen P15N and powered by dual 6L6GC tubes in push-pull configuration to produce a modest 25 watts. The 6L6GCs were cathode biased and along with the 5U4GB rectifier tube contributed to a forgiving sag, early breakup, and a midrange-y voice.
Fender made several changes when they launched that amp’s successor in 1955, the more widely known 5E7 narrow-panel Bandmaster, a well-proven amp that has come back as a reissue model. It was still a dual-channel amp—instrument and microphone—but the newer 5E7 model had a fixed bias and a negative feedback loop, providing a louder, firmer, and cleaner tone. Most importantly, the single 15" speaker was replaced by three 10" speakers, making it very similar to the narrow-panel tweed Bassman, the granddaddy of all Marshall amps. This Bandmaster had three speakers instead of the Bassman’s four, and it delivered 25–30 watts instead of 40. It offered early breakup with a midrange-y, big and full tone.
For those not acquainted with tweed amps, the volume and EQ knobs behave differently than on silver- and black-panel Fender amps. The volume pot can act like a distortion control, while the EQ knobs control the volume, and many players I’ve talked to have not really unlocked this secret. This works because, in these circuits, the volume pot sits right before the preamp tube, which allows it to push the tube into full distortion. Since the EQ pots are located right after and are capable of reducing the volume, you’re able to distort the preamp at low volume settings.
“Things became more standardized in 1964 with the arrival of the black-panel AB763 Bandmaster, an amp I have worked on a lot and appreciate for its robustness, simplicity, and versatility.”
In 1960, a short-lived and rare Bandmaster dressed in brown tolex and a black faceplate appeared with the 5G7 circuit. From here on, all Bandmasters had the modern top-mounted chassis. With this circuit, the Bandmaster started to both look and sound more like a black-panel amp. It kept the 3x10" speakers but got a diode rectifier and bigger transformers resulting in a 45-watt output. Tremolo was introduced for the first time, and both channels were now intended for guitar.
The following year, a blonde 6G7 Bandmaster followed as a smaller amp head paired with a 1x12 extension cabinet. It had the timeless early blonde looks with cream tolex, brown faceplate, oxblood grill cloth, large Fender logo, and white knobs. But halfway into the blonde era, towards 1964, things turned strange and rather confusing. There were suddenly two 12" speakers, black knobs, a wheat-colored grill cloth, a more slim black-panel-style Fender logo, a black faceplate, and all in various combinations close to the transition into ’64.
Things became more standardized in 1964 with the arrival of the black-panel AB763 Bandmaster, an amp I have worked on a lot and appreciate for its robustness, simplicity, and versatility. It offers a pure, clean, scooped black-panel tone that’s somewhere between a Vibrolux Reverb and Pro Reverb, which share the medium-sized 125A6A output transformer and dual 6L6GC tubes. With its medium/high power and flexible 4-ohm output impedance, it can drive all kinds of speaker cabinets—as long as you stay between 2 and 8 ohms, you are safe.
For a short time in 1967–68, there was a transitional Bandmaster with aluminum trim and black-panel innards before the all-new silver-panel Bandmaster Reverb replaced it in 1968. The small-head cabinet had grown in size and, unfortunately, weight to accommodate the reverb tank. The amp got a 5U4GB rectifier tube along with a few general silver-panel changes to the circuit. Several silver-panel models existed with minor differences until a 70-watt beast version came along in 1977 with master volume.
To my own 1968 Bandmaster Reverb, I have done a few adjustments. First, I made a custom baffle to hold two 8" speakers. I installed a pair of WGS G8C speakers that fit perfectly on the baffle board without colliding with the reverb tank or transformers. Sometimes, I use only one of the 8" speakers for bedroom volume levels. Second, I reversed the bias circuitry to standard AB763 specs, making it easier to adjust bias correctly on both power tubes. If you are into sparkling clean and funky Strat sounds, you would love this little 2x8" combo.