The semi-hollow Maverick has the same scale and playability, and shares much of the setup, but a more naturalistic look, with an alder top and a red cedar body, and Seymour Duncan Red Devil pickups. Like all the Cream guitars we handled, the neck feels smooth and easy, and the well-finished medium jumbo frets were a pleasure. The Maverick also has a secret weapon: a multi-bender, which can be set for any two strings by sliding along a rail, and can be dialed in to bend a full or half step. The tag: $2,500.

Dumble Amplification brought an impressive collection to the show, but this amp might be the most significant. Before Dumble would agree to build you an amp you had to make the pilgrimage to see him and play for him. This amp, dubbed “Woody”, would be what each player would plug into. It’s a single-channel design that has this beautiful, smooth compression. And like many of Dumble’s amp designs, there’s nowhere to hide.

EHX always brings some fresh goodies to NAMM and this year they showed us a trio of tone twisters. The most impressive unit had to be the POG3 that builds off their stupendous previous iterations and put lightning-fast tracking and perfect polyphony over four octaves with smoother tone and performance than ever before. It has six voices including DRY, -2, -1, +5th, +1, & +2, you can mix each with individual sliders and create enveloping stereo effects with dedicated pan knobs and selectable LEFT/RIGHT/DIRECT outputs. The effects section has been expanded to offer envelope control and adjustable Q for the new multi-mode FILTER, enhanced DETUNE section with SPREAD, and individual DRY effect selection, plus the famous ATTACK slider for subtle or dramatic swell effects. It also includes expression effects like Freeze, Glissando, Volume, Filter, X-Fade, and Warp.