"This vintage Gretsch amp, made by the Valco Manufacturing Company in the early '60s, comes with a tremolo footswitch and is estimated between $800 and $1,200."
The prolific Australian guitarist brought his mastery to east Nashville, where we got a look at the gear he’s trusting overseas.
Adam Miller has been compared to plenty of his most sacred influences—Tommy Emmanuel, Chet Atkins, Charlie Hunter, Bill Frissell—but he’s certainly carved a path of his own. This year alone, he’s released three records and undertook a U.S. tour to bring his delightful mix of jazz, groove, and beyond to eager listeners.
Before his show at the Underdog in east Nashville, Miller took some time to show PG’s Chris Kies around his trusted tools for international touring, including a gorgeous custom Huber electric, a Collings acoustic, and some key items on loan.
Calling a Huber
This custom-built Huber electric, by German luthier Nik Huber, was crafted over the last five years, working in elements of Miller’s previous Huber and several other designs. It has a heavily chambered mahogany back and redwood top, bolt-on maple neck, rosewood fretboard, trapeze tailpiece, and nylon saddles, plus Kloppmann Electrics mini humbuckers and a single 250k volume pot, which rolls off for a jazzy archtop sound. Miller strings it with D’Addario NYXLs (.011–.049s).
Borrowed Bari
Since Miller can’t bring all his favorite instruments on tour, he often borrows guitars from local friends and fans on tour, like this baritone Novo Serus J.
Collings Calling
Miller bought this Collings acoustic at Gladesville Guitar Factory, just outside Sydney, about 10 years ago. He runs it with a Seymour Duncan Wavelength duo pickup system, but swapped out the kit’s undersaddle piece for soundboard transducers and modified “the circuit so they’re at a crossover, so you’re only hearing the bottom end of them and all the top end’s coming from the condenser mic.” He uses D’Addario Nickel Bronze (.012–0.53s) on his acoustic.
Can I Bum a Studio Sig?
Miller has been a Two-Rock devotee since 2007, and on one of his first trips to the U.S., he visited the factory and picked one up. He doesn’t travel with his unit, so he borrowed this one from Nashville legend Cory Congilio. For Miller, an amp is the soundboard for an electric guitar; if he doesn’t have a Two-Rock, he struggles.
Adam Miller’s Pedalboard
Miller’s Collings runs into a Grace Design ALiX preamp, which helps him fine-tune his EQ and level out pickups with varying output when he switches instruments. For reverb, sometimes he’ll tap the Strymon Flint, but often he’ll let the front of house weave it in.
Aside from the ALiX and Flint, Miller relies on a Vemuram Jan Ray, Free the Tone SOV-2 Overdrive, Chase Bliss Mood, and Line 6 DL4 Mk II.
Raw, rowdy, rugged, and won’t break the bank—a no-frills double cutaway delivers on its decades-old streamlined design promise with USA-made P-90s.
The GibsonLes Paul Special was first introduced as a single cutaway model in 1955, and with the exception of the sunburst Standards that were produced from 1958-1960, it was the last of the original50s-era Les Paul model variants to be introduced. An enhanced version of the Les Paul Junior with increased sonic flexibility, it featured two P-90 pickups instead of the single P-90 found on the Junior and also added a bit of extra bling in the form of a bound fretboard and a mother-of-pearl headstock logo. In 1958, the body shape was revised from a single cutaway to a double cutaway, which delivered improved fretboard access, and the Special hit its stride in 1960 when a thinner SlimTaper neck profile and a lower neck pickup placement made it more robust and easier to play than ever.
Now, Epiphone, in partnership with Gibson Custom, is proud to introduce the 1960 Les Paul Special Double Cut Reissue, an Inspired by Gibson Custom recreation of the sought-after 1960 Les Paul Special Double Cut. Like the originals, it features a slab mahogany body with double cutaways that provide excellent access to the entire length of the fretboard. The one-piece mahogany neck has a fast-playing 60s SlimTaper profile and is capped with a rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and mother-of-pearl dot position marker inlays. The fretboard has a 12” radius that makes playing first-position chords and solos with string bends further up the neck equally effortless. The Gibson “open book” style headstock is equipped with Epiphone Deluxe three-on-a-plate tuners with white buttons and a GraphTech nut to help keep the tuning nice and stable, while a historic style Wraparound bridge with intonation screws solidly anchors the strings at the other end and contributes to the excellent sustain that the Les Paul Special is famous for. A pair of USA-made P-90 Soap bar pickups from Gibson Custom that can go from sweet and clean to outright nasty and dirty-sounding are hand-wired to individual volume and tone controls with high-quality CTS potentiometers and Bumblebee paper-in-oil capacitors for authentic vintage tones that are sure to please even the most tone-conscious players.
The 1960 Les Paul Special Double Cut Reissue comes packaged in a vintage-style case with a brown exterior and pink plush interior that features Inspired by Gibson Custom graphics on the exterior. It all comes together to deliver a vintage playing and ownership experience at an accessible price that is special in every way.
Gibson commemorates 50 years in Nashville with an unexpected, limited edition evolution of their understated Marauder.
For 50 years, Gibson has been proud to call Nashville home, shaping sound, supporting the artists who make our community special, and crafting the guitars that have defined generations of music. Now, we’re honoring that legacy with something new. Introducing the Les Paul Music City Special – 50th Anniversary, a tribute to where we’ve been and a celebration of where the music will lead next.
The Music City Special – 50th Anniversary is an updated, modern twist on two historical Gibson models, taking much of its inspiration from the 70s-era Marauder, with a touch of the Music City Junior in its DNA. Over the years, the Marauder has been used by artists from Adam Jones to Paul Stanley. This unique commemorative model pays tribute to the early days of Gibson’s Nashville production and celebrates Gibson’s 50 years of producing world-class guitars in Music City while delivering outstanding value to modern players.
The high-powered Southern rockers return for a full-on Rig Rundown.
From couchsurfing to playing the Ryman, rockers Whiskey Myers of Palestine, Texas, have had one hell of a Cinderella story. We caught up with guitarist John Jeffers back in 2021 for a virtual Rig Rundown, but this time around, ahead of the September release of their seventh LP, Whomp Whack Thunder, PG’s Chris Kies met up with Jeffers and rhythm guitarist Cody Tate before their July 19 gig at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater to get a tour of their latest and loudest noisemakers.
This ’90s GibsonLes Paul is Jeffers’ most treasured guitar, gifted to him by Tate’s uncle—an avid collector—before he passed away. It’s loaded with a DiMarzio Super Distortion and a “Jeff Beck” pickup, which is how it came to Jeffers. He strings it with .0105s.
Murphy Magic
This 1960 Les Paul reissue was hand-painted by Gibson’s custom-shop whiz, Tom Murphy.
Flavor of the Night
Jeffers has long been a Vox AC30 Hand-Wired player, but recently he’s been throwing Oranges into the mix, including a Custom Shop 50. He’ll decide night-to-night which amp he wants to go with. The Voxes have Weber Silver Bell and Blue Dog speakers, and the Orange has Celestion Vintage 30s.
John Jeffers’ Pedalboard
After a Lehle volume pedal, Jeffers stomp station has a Boss TU-3w, a Dunlop wah, PCE-FX Aluminum Falcon, Union Tube and Transistor More, Empress Compress Mk II, Interstellar Octonaut Hyperdrive, Boss BF-2, EarthQuaker Devices The Depths, two Skreddy Echos, and a Hermida Audio reverb. Jeffers jumps around them all with a Voodoo Lab PX-8 PLUS True Bypass Programmable Pedal Switcher.
Guitar Center Special
Tate calls this FenderStratocaster a “Guitar Center special,” which he’s had for 15 years now. It’s mostly stock, save for some custom wiring. He plays it with Ernie Ball Slinkies, mostly in the middle position for rhythm playing.
Brown Beauty
Tate fell in love with this heavily modded Strat when he saw it on Reverb, and he had to pull the trigger. He’s not sure what the pickups are—especially the Gretsch Filter’Tron-style bridge unit—but it’s got the signature Strat bounce with a bit of extra grease.
Marshall Law
Tate runs two Marshall JCM800s, one 50-watt and one 100-watt, through four custom cabs loaded with Weber 12" speakers.
Cody Tate’s Pedalboard
Cody’s board is slightly more restrained than Jeffers’. It includes some of the same units, including a Boss TU-3w, Dunlop wah, and Empress Compressor Mk II, plus a JHS Unicorn, Prestige, and Morning Glory. A Boss ES-5 handles the switching.
Looking for versatility without cranking a stadium-level rig?
In this video, PG contributor Tom Butwin puts three sub‑50-watt amplifiers to the test: the British‑voiced Suhr SL15, the mid‑’60s American‑style PRS Sonzera 20, and the gig‑ready solid‑state Blackstar Debut 50R. Tom explores the tones, features, and ideal use cases of all three amps—highlighting who they're best suited for and how they perform in different setups. Which one fits your playing style and needs?
Miller’s Collings runs into a Grace Design ALiX preamp, which helps him fine-tune his EQ and level out pickups with varying output when he switches instruments. For reverb, sometimes he’ll tap the 
