
Dig into the details of a pile of new gear from Steve Vai, MXR, Abasi Concepts, Dophix, b3, and more!
Taylor 722ce
Taylor Guitars brought a new pair of 700-series acoustics to the show. The new Koa-based line was born out of a particular grade of wood that sits between their K series and the wood they use for veneers. The 724ce and 722ce both feature Expression 2 preamps and an ultra-thin finish. Each one will street for $3,499.
Eventide Blackhole
Although the Dot9 line of pedals have been out for a bit, Eventide officially brought this quartet of stomps to the masses at the NAMM show. The lineup covers well-known H9 algorithms such as the Blackhole, old-school EVH-style micro pitch tones, massive chorus sounds, pristine delays, and more.
Martin Custom Guitar
Here's the 2,500,000th guitar to come through Martin’s factory and built by their team. The guitar was made from birdseye Belizean rosewood and heavy Sitka spruce. Display built by Jody Betz.
Positive Grid Spark Mini
Positive Grid announced the Spark Mini, which is a full featured practice amp that also works as a Bluetooth speaker. The free app allows for deep signal-chain editing and comes loaded with a ton of amp and effects. They are taking pre-orders now at an intro price of $195.
Dreadbox Treminator
At $199, Dreadbox’s Treminator goes way past trad-style trem. It offers five different wave shapes, fade in/out controls, tap tempo, and a handful of “secret” features when you hold down one of the footswitches. Think Minus the Bear in a box.
VegaTrem VT-2
Do you love Teles and wigglesticks? VegaTrem just gave us a quick look a the VT-2, which takes there rock-solid trem technology and applies it to T-style setups. Installation isn’t invasive and the bar feels smooth as silk. Pricing is TBA, but look for them this fall.
Manhattan Prestige Basses Session One
Famed session legend Neil Jason founded a new instrument company called Manhattan Prestige Basses and brought their first model, the Session One, to NAMM. It’s an incredibly well-balanced instrument that sports an alder body, maple neck, Tusq nut, Luminay fret markers, and a Wilkinson bridge. A rock-solid workhorse that comes in at $999 street.
Imperial Electric: The Appetite
Red Witch’s Ben Fulton debuted his new company, Imperial Electric, and pair of amp-in-a-box pedals that pay tribute to two seminal guitar heroes. The Zeppelin aims to capture the tone from a particularly influential MSG concert film by combining a Echoplex-style preamp with a FET-based plexi-style amp circuit. The Appetite takes aim at the sound of the Sunset Strip by combining a more modern-sounding FET-based amp circuit with a germanium boost to push it over the top. Both will street for $229 each.
GTRS S800
The S800 from GTRS is powered by Mooer’s robust modeling technology. This S-style guitar pairs with a Bluetooth foot controller (sold separately) and an app to craft nearly any kind of signal chain you can imagine. There’s a single control knob on the guitar that allows you to cycle through presets on the fly. All for about $1,000 street.
Audient EVO16
The Audient EVO16 is a fully featured recording solution that offers 8 inputs, phantom power, multiple headphone outputs, and an inventive Smart Gain feature that makes setting levels a snap. Will hit stores soon at $499.
Pro Co Lil' Rat
The classic tone of the Rat has been shrunk into a micro-sized enclosure. It has the exact same circuitry and clipping as the original, just smaller. In order to save space they took out the battery option, but it still sounds as gnarly as ever. And quite a deal at $79.
Blackstar St. James
Blackstar spent the last two years developing a new line of ultra-powerful and ultra-light amps. The St James series offers two different setups (6L6 and EL84) that include a full 3-band EQ, dual channels, reverb, reactive load options, and deep editing via an app. Heads are $1,199, combos are $1,299, and the 2x12 can is $749.
Martin D-28 Rich Robinson Guitar
Martin just released a new signature model from Rich Robinson that was patterned after his dad’s ‘50s model. It has rosewood back and sides, a chunky neck, Sitka spruce too, and is the first artist model that's aged to replicate the original. It will street for $6,999 and be out in late summer.
Ernie Ball Music Man Tosin Abasi Kaizen
Futuristic shredder Tosin Abasi just announced a new collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man. The Kaizen is an immaculately designed 7-string that sports a mini humbucker in the neck, Steinberger tuners, a multiscale neck with floating trem, and much more. Should be out in late summer with a price TBA.
Steve Vai Hydra
One of the most incredible creations at this year’s show was Steve Vai’s Ibanez Hydra. It was prominently featured on Vai’s last album and the up-close details are amazing.
Tom Quayle Signature
Ibanez and fusion stylist Tom Quayle extended their partnership with a singlecut signature model that's loaded with a Seymour Duncan mini-humbucker in the neck and an Alnico Pro II in the bridge.
Abasi Concepts emi Series
Abasi Concepts just launched their emi series which includes options for standard fret spacing, SSS and HSS pickup configurations and much more. Keep an eye on their website as these will be released in batches through their mailing list.
Dophix Michelangelo Overdrive Plus
Italian pedal maker Dophix showed us their entire line and these two were the standouts. The Michelangelo Overdrive Plus is a fully featured boost/OD combo that houses three different clipping modes (FET, silicon, and germanium), a blend control, and switchable effect order. The Galileo Optical Tremolo can go from swirly, comforting waves to stuttering noisemaking fuel. Each will be available for $399 street.
b3 Guitars Telstar
Gene Baker and b3 Guitars brought their mashed-up Telstar to the show. It pays obvious tribute to a pair of classic models, but this one features a 10(!)-way switch, Lollar pickups, a double graphite reinforced bolt-on neck, and a MannMade hybrid tremolo. They will be exclusively sold through The Music Emporium and will start at $5,200.
Gamechanger Audio Bigsby Pedal
Gamechanger Audio's new collaboration with Fender has resulted in a digital version of a seminal tremolo. The Bigsby pedal allows for both upward and downward polyphonic pitch bending in addition to adjusting the rate of the vibrato. It feels smooth and natural and makes the more extreme Bigsby moves much easier. It's available now for $379.
Black Volt Amplification Earthcaster
Typically, Black Volt Amplification is known for their line of rustic amps, but this year they brought a few new guitars. The Earthcaster and Lightning Bolt are T-style guitars that are built out of old-growth wood. Depending on what the custom is looking for there are various customizable options that can be included. The Earthcaster starts at $3,200 and the Lightning Bolt starts at $4,200.
MXR and Third Man Hardware Double Down
The latest pedal collab from Jack White's Third Man Records is the Double Down. Inside, there are two of MXR's Micro Amp circuits in a single box. It has dual outputs with phase and buffer switches on the side. Should be out later this year.
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acoustics—made famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as I’m prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar that’s ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The “thumbs-up” headstock and the big “thumb” on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We don’t often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ’60s label Kent—a brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180T’s “thumbs up” headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ’60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
“Unless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.”
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I can’t decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. It’s very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. It’s a shame because these pickups sound great! They’re very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
• Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
• Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1–b3–4–5–b7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2–4–5–6–1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5–b7–1–2–4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (D–F–A) gives us 1–b3–5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (C–E–G) gives us the b7–9–4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1–2–b3–4–5–b7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (C–Dm–Em–F–G–Am–Bdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4–1–b3–5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
Building upon the foundation of the beloved Core Collection H-535, this versatile instrument is designed to serve as a masterpiece in tone.
The new model features striking aesthetic updates and refined tonal enhancements. Crafted at the iconic 225 Parsons Street factory, home to other world-famous models like the H-150, H-157, and H-575 - the H-555 continues to exemplify the very best of American craftsmanship.
The Core Collection H-555 features a set of Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers, meticulously wound in-house with carefully selected components, and voiced to deliver added punch and richness while preserving exceptional dynamics and touch sensitivity. Seamlessly complementing the H-555’s semi-hollow construction, they blend warmth and woodiness with refined, articulate clarity.
The Core Collection H-555’s aesthetic has been elevated with multi-ply binding on the body, headstock, and pickguard. Its neck, sculpted in a classic ’50s profile, delivers effortless comfort and is adorned with elegant block inlays, seamlessly blending style with playability. Gold hardware complements the aesthetic, exuding elegance while presenting the H-555 as a truly premium and versatile instrument for the discerning player.
Available in Ebony and Trans Cherry, each Core Collection H-555 is beautifully finished with a nitrocellulose vintage gloss that features a subtle shine and gracefully ages over time. An Artisan Aged option is also available for those seeking an authentically well-loved look and feel, achieved through a meticulous, entirely hand-finished aging process. The new Core Collection continues Heritage’s tradition of world-class craftsmanship, offering a true masterpiece in tone and design for discerning players. Each guitar is shipped in a premium Heritage Custom Shop hard case.
Key Features
- Finest Tonewoods: Laminated highly figured Curly Maple (Top & Back) with solid Curly Maple sides
- Heritage Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers: Designed and wound in-house
- Headstock: Multi-ply bound headstock, featuring a Kite inlay, 3×3 tuners laser-etched with Heritage graphics
- Neck Profile: Comfortable ’50s C-shape for a vintage feel
- Bridge: Tune-O-Matic with aluminum stopbar tailpiece for enhanced sustain
- Made in the USA: Crafted at 225 Parsons Street
For more information, please visit heritageguitars.com.