Dig into the details of new gear from Martin, Godin, Friedman Amps, Reverend, Eastman, Victory Amps, Danelectro and more!
Taylor 314ce LTD
Martin Inception Maple
Blackstar ID:Core
Vox V846 Wah
Silvertone Baritone
Silvertone’s Rick Taylor showed us the company’s late spring entry in the nuevo-retro 6-string sweepstakes—a super comfortable lightweight (naturally) baritone with a 28" scale and the company’s classic lipstick pickups, built to be tuned B to B. Price tag: an attractive $399.
Radial Nuance Select
Radial, whose products for studio and stage include the famed Tonebone preamp, has just released the Nuance Select studio monitor controller—in time for NAMM 2024. The aptly named Nuance allows you to silently switch between two sets of monitors and a subwoofer, has dual stereo inputs with an aux out, two independent headphone amps, and ultra-low distortion of transparency. The tag? $699.
Spector Basses
Revv Generator 120
Celestion Pulse XI
Celestion’s got the big bottom covered with their new line of bass speakers, the Pulse Xl series in 15", 12", 10" and horn. Punchy, responsive, with rich full frequency sound and articulation, they boast long voice coils for a deeper bass sound and greater clarity, wound with round copper for the right taste of treble, formed on heat retardant polyimide. Hit celestion.com for more.
Aguilar AG Preamp
Darkglass Combo 500
Huss & Dalton Electric Guitars
Seymour Duncan Powerstage 100 Stereo
Seymour Duncan’s Powerstage 100 Stereo takes their portable—and lightweight!—line of power amps to the next level with more power, more EQ, and, of course, stereo capabilities! Priced at $599, they’re available now.
Positive Grid's Spark Live
NUX B-8
The NUX B-8 brings advanced wireless capabilities straight to your board with 160 foot range. Features include tuning and boost capabilities and loads of screen options. Available now for $319 street.
Cherub Products
Mooer GE1000
Mooer’s new GE1000 multi-effects unit delivers a multitude of stomp box functionality in a touchscreen-equipped unit with mappable expression pedal and Bluetooth capability. Priced at $528/$599 (battery powered), they’re available now.
Eko Marco Polo MM
Eastman Henry James Signature Juliet
Lag Sauvage DCE
Red Panda Radius
Red Panda’s new Radius pedal has loads of deep tones to discover. Ostensibly a ring mod/frequency shifter, its unique controls will allow you to head to the outer limits with phase-shifting, tremolo sounds, and much, much more! Priced at $349, they’re available now.
Balaguer Select Custom Guitars
Balaguer Guitars just announced their Select Custom line of highly customized models based on their existing body shapes. Customers can choose scale length, wood, binding, finish, and electronics. All at fairly reasonable prices. You can head over to their website now to play with their online guitar designer.
Santa Cruz Vault Series
Santa Cruz’s Vault Series is built upon the idea of using very old reclaimed wood that master luthier Richard Hoover has been saving for decades. This D-style model uses Brazilian Rosewood from the Bryn Athena Cathedral for the back and sides and master grade Fort Ross Chapel redwood for the top. Nearly every part of this build is immaculate and the craftsmanship pushes the limits of modern lutherie. The price? $70,000.
Third Man Hardware and Donner Triple Threat
Donner and Third Man Hardware just released a new collaboration aimed at guitarists who need a simple and portable multi-effects solution. For $99 you get echo, phaser, and distortion.
Victory Amps MK Clean
Collings Guitars
Collings is offering NAMM visitors a glimpse into some models to come, from sleek solidbodies to an all-new dreadnought. These prototypes aren’t available yet, but they’re here for everyone to get a peek at their vision for the future.
Two Notes Genome
Two notes’ Genome offers deep functionality with loads of amp and pedal models on hand. It’s interface makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for and dial it in. Priced at $79.95, it’s free for any existing Two notes hardware or DynIR cab customers.
Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z and the Chris Freeman Signature
That’s Reverend’s Ken Haas with the two new signature models the company debuted at NAMM 2024: the Billy Corgan Drop Z (right, in Billy’s favored satin pearl white finish) and the Chris Freeman model. The Drop Z is designed for drop tuning, with a 24-fret, 26.22" scale neck, an alder body and Railhammer Billy Corgan Z-One pickups. The Chris Freeman has a bridge Railhammer Nuevo 90 and a neck P-90, with rear-mounted volume, tone, and bass contour controls, a 3-way pickup switch, and double kill switches—a toggle and a kill button, It’s available in the turquoise sparkle finish on the 6-string Ken’s holding, or powder yellow. The Drop Z streets for $1,499 and the Freeman at $1,199.
L.R. Baggs HiFi Duet
The L.R. Baggs HiFi Duet is a brand new update to the company’s popular HiFi, now with a studio quality bridge-plate microphone that is blendable with the contact sensors. Pricing and availability coming soon.
Eventide Riptide
Mackie Showbox
Chibson Protoypes
Iris/Circle Strings Guitars
Gamechanger Audio Mod Series
Gamechanger Audio released an entire new line of pedals at NAMM. The Mod series combines their penchant for inventive, time-based effects with their love for modular synth-style controls. There are literally thousands of ways to control these effects including via pitch and dynamics. For example, you can set a target note and everything either above or below it can be affected by any parameter. Production will start in March and they will be $299 each.
Peterson StroboClip HDC Tuner
The Peterson StroboClip HDC brings the company’s popular sweetener offerings right to your headstock. This new rechargeable model works for 6 hours of continuous use on a single charge and the quick charge circuit delivers 90 more minutes of use on a two minute charge. Available now for $79.
Danelectro Fifty-Niner
Lichtlaerm Audio Amps
Newcomers Lichtlaerm Audio gave us a tour of their custom-build Prometheus head and Fane-loaded 4x12 cab. Loaded with features, your own will be available within a month or two of order, plus shipping time from Germany, at a starting price of $2,700.
Godin Lerxst Limelight
One of the higher profile releases of the show was Godin's collaboration with Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. The Lerxst Limelight is based on Lifeson's '80s-era model and is outfitted with either a Floyd Rose setup or the Vega-Trem VT1 shown here. The pickups were made by MojoTone and overall, the guitar feels and sounds incredible. Streets for $4,000.
Divided by 13 FTR 37
Divided by 13 relaunched after their acquisition by Two-Rock at the show with this FTR 37. It's a muscular 6V6 circuit with two discreet channels, reverb, push/pull gain boost, and a half-power switch. If you're a fan of Fullerton-style sounds, than this might be just the setup for you. It has a full-bodied clean tone and a rich breakup sound that's dynamic with plenty of sparkle.
Aeroband Guitars
The Aeroband guitar looks like a wild glimpse into the future—and also back into the ‘80s—but with its app capability, the company is touting the education possibilities it has to offer. Also, it’s fun. Priced at $500, it’s available now.
Supro Delegate Custom
Supro enters the boutique amp market with the mighty 1x12 Delegate Custom, inspired by the Aristocrat amp Muddy Waters used for the Live at Newport album … but supercharged. With a custom-colored wraparound cabinet, it’s all hand-built in Ohio with Mercury Magnetics transformers, period-correct Mallory caps, a custom 12” Celestion Greenback, 3-band EQ, and master volume. It’s got a 12AT7 driving the spring reverb, two 6V6 power tubes, and three 12AX7s. The tag: $3,299, and there’s a 2x12 big sibling, too. It’s Supro mastermind David Koltai’s (in photo) latest pride and joy.
KMA Machine Endgame
KMA Machine's Endgame Duality Calibrator might be one of the most feature-packed stomps at the show. It has an exhaustive amount of I/O options but the centerpieces are the automatic double tracker and the switchable IR loader. Other highlights include dual headphone outputs, XLR outputs, Bluetooth capability, stereo effects loop, ambience control, and loads more.
Strandberg Boden Essential
Strandberg's Boden Essential is the company's first sub-$1k guitar. It retains the same look and feel of the other models, but uses locally sourced Indonesian wood to help keep the price down. Ola told us that the pickups are the same as in the standard model, but the hardware is reengineered for durability and sustainability.
Godin Arena Pro
Godin is debuting a pair of all-black nylon-string guitars. The Arena Pro is a LTD Onyx Black is a single cut with a solid cedar top and Canadian wild cherry black and sides, plus top-mounted volume and tone controls. They’ve paired it with a new addition to their Multiac Mundial line in matching onyx black accoutrements. These guitars are available now and priced at $1,099 and $1,299 respectively.
Godin Fifth Ave
Godin Session T-Pro Hangover
Friedman Amplification Plexi Vintage Series
Not surprisingly, Dave Friedman created a vintage plexi-style amp that absolutely rips. It's based on an EL34 design, a familiar control setup, and plenty of juice.
Circle Strings Languedoc
Adam Buchwald's burgeoning Vermont guitar empire will take on a new collaboration in 2024. Famed luthier Paul Languedoc has agreed to have Buchwald steward the production of the G2 and G4 models made famous by Phish's Trey Anastasio. Paul will still be making the G2 models while the G4 line will be created in Buchwald's shop (although some elements of the G4 will continue to be handmade by Paul). The G2s will be extremely limited and run north of $60k, but the G4s, when available, will be $16,000.
T-Rex Binson Echorec
The Binson Echorec by T-Rex isn’t new this year, but it sure is cool. It sounds exactly like you think it should, and does all the tricks of the classic units.
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This story’s author played this Belltone B-Classic 3 and found its neck instantly appealing, the tremolo capable of taking abuse and staying in tune, and the Filter’Tron pickups possessed of hi-fi clarity. Also, the sky burst metallic finish is pure eye candy.
That’s where guitar-by-menu comes in. Think of it as Build–A-Bear for guitar players, but louder and with cooler options, like a coral pink sparkle finish or a trapeze tailpiece. A coterie of manufacturers offers such services, some with online pull-down menus that cover everything from pickups to, well, all that goes into a guitar. And the advantage here is that no particular expertise other than knowing what you love to play and why you love to play it is required. You dig a Tele or a Jazzmaster or an SG or a Firebird from a certain era, but want a specific bridge or pickup combination, a ’50s or late-’60s neck, a finish not available in production models? No problem. Or maybe you crave something a tad more distinctive, with a non-traditional body shape, no headstock, and a finish that draws from the color palette of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. All you gotta do is ask … or, rather, pick, click, order, or email, perhaps with a phone call to confirm the details.
We spoke to a clutch of large and smaller guitar companies—Belltone, Kiesel, Fender, and Gibson—to see how they do it.
The Belltone Way
“I was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,” says Belltone founder Steve Harriman. “I changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever.”
Like former Gibson CEO James Curleigh, Belltone Guitars founder Stephen King Harriman was an apparel executive with Perry Ellis before starting the Florida-based company in 2016. But the gig he’s had since junior high school is guitarist.
“I was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,” Harriman says. “I changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever. I always had to make what I was playing, whether it was a Les Paul or a Tele, unique, so it would be personally mine.”
Initially, Belltone offered modded versions of Les Paul- and Telecaster-style guitars, but in 2019 he reframed his business, designing an ergonomically contoured pear-shaped body and distinctive 6-on-a-side headstock as a foundation, and establishing a group of craftspeople to bring his solidbody B-Classic One, B-Classic Two, and B-Classic Three variations to life.
Today, Belltone guitars are made for players looking for a similar mix of the fresh and the familiar, at $2,680 to $3,129, depending on appointments. And the range of appointments is impressive. Let’s start with the templates. The Classic One has a flat top with edge binding, an alder body, a rounded tapered neck pocket, the company’s signature Devil’s Tail bridge and angled switch-control plate, reverse-dome tall-boy knobs, and a 12" compound-radius neck (held on by four bolts), with 22 medium-jumbo frets. In contrast, the Classic Two has all of the above, except there are arm and body contours with no binding, and the Classic Three offers the same plus Belltone’s patented Back-Lip Tremolo System and top hat controls.
“I’m inspired by a lot of ’50s and ’60 car designs for the elements of my guitars.”—Belltone’s Steve Harriman
Then, there’s a rabbit hole of options. There are 36 finish choices, with 10 ’bursts—including gorgeous black cherry burst, sky burst metallic, and lemon burst shades—requiring an upcharge of $40. There are varied pickguards to choose from within Belltone’s distinctive “Deco” version, which comes in black, white, and brown tortoise. There are four neck combinations (standard C and ’59 roundback profiles, with maple or rosewood fretboards), four tuner options (locking tuners from Belltone, Sperzel, and Kluson, plus ratio tuners), and a set of any-gauge Stringjoys. And the selection of pickups is truly impressive—36 in all, from TV Jones, Benson, Rio Grande, Mojo, Lindy Fralin, Porter, McNelly, Righteous Sound, Gabojo, and the newly added Brickhouse Tone Works. And within those selections are standard and hum-cancelling P-90s, stacked humbuckers, PAF humbuckers, regular and noiseless single-coils, multiple Filter’Tron variations, and more. Further, via Belltone’s Tone-Sure program, if a customer feels they’ve made the wrong call on pickups after playing their guitar a while, Belltone will swap them out at no charge save for covering shipping and the additional cost of pricier units.
“I’m inspired by a lot of ’50s and ’60 car designs for the elements of my guitars,” Harriman attests. “If you look at my bridge, for example, it’s got kind of a tailfin look to it. For me, guitars need to not only play well and sound great, but look cool. Also, everything is designed by me and is machine-tooled. My bridge is machine-tooled aluminum with rounded contours, as your palm can get roughed up on the old-style stamped ashtray bridges. I take all the things that make players happy into consideration.” Including sturdy and handsome faux-alligator-skin cases.
A deliberative buyer could spend weeks contemplating all of Belltone’s options before pushing the “submit” button, and then, instead of being invoiced, they are contacted directly by Harriman to review it all again before his luthiers get to work.
Gibson’s Made to Measure
One of Gibson’s Made to Measure fantasies: an SG with three humbuckers in a crimson sparkle finish.
The 131-year-old Gibson company’s Made to Measure (MTM) program is a bit more conservative … but only if you’d call a hot-crimson-sparkle SG with three humbuckers, a burgundy Les Paul Standard with a full-fretboard vine inlay, a champagne-pink-sparkle Les Paul, or a 3-pickup Firebird with a P-90 in the middle conservative.
There are two ways to initiate an order for an MTM guitar. You can fill out the online questionnaire on the Gibson Custom Shop’s Made to Measure page or stop by the Nashville or London locations of the Gibson Garage in person. I visited the Nashville Garage for this story, where I spoke with Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate you’d likely encounter if you walked into the Music City shop. They brought a clutch of recent MTM examples. And a wall of the MTM room was covered in slabs of wood, available for the choosing, and various bridges, tuners, pickups, and other parts for inspection and selection. Of course, some of the on-location fun is speaking with MTM program leaders like Boyer and Wainscott, who love guitars as much as you do and are happy to swap stories.
Whether by email, which will likely be followed up by a call from Boyer, or in person, the conversation that starts a MTM order begins with questions about body style, neck preference, electronics configuration, and the finish type and treatment.
“On the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want.”—Gibson’s Dustin Wainscott
At the Gibson Garage Nashville, Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate in charge of MTM at that location, brandish a pair of custom-ordered instruments.
Photo by Ted Drozdowski
Essentially, any Gibson body currently in production and most historic appointments from that model’s history—and some from other compatible Gibson models—can be used for an MTM order. After selecting the white wood, as slabs are called in lutherie, “figuring out the pickup layout, the neck profile, and the tailpiece you want is the next step,” says Wainscott. “Then you get into the electronics and the look of the guitar: pickup selection, coil-splitting, what color or finish hardware, a glossy or flat finish, any Murphy Lab aging.
“Non-proprietary parts can sometimes be a roadblock. Typically, we’d use our pickups, for example, so if somebody makes a request for a pickup outside of Gibson’s, I try to steer them toward something we have that’s similar. You’ve got to play in the Gibson sandbox.” Stepping outside of historic model-design parameters, which would require re-engineering, is also a no-fly. That means don’t ask for a Les Paul with a Firebird neck, or an Explorer with a 3-on-a-side headstock. That said, there is a lot of wiggle room within the company’s catalog, and “on the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want,” adds Wainscott. Personalized headstocks are also a popular option.
A Made to Measure order’s price starts with a $500 charge on top of a model’s current tag, and can increase depending on the complexity of wiring, finish, inlays, etc. Wainscott notes that about 30 percent of the Custom Shop’s business is Made to Measure.
“We also do a lot of recreating of models you’ve seen in the past that aren’t available now,” adds Boyer. “So, we can’t make a Jimmy Page Les Paul with his name on it, per se, but if you want a Les Paul Custom with three pickups, a Bigsby, a 6-position switch, and all that, we can do it for you.”
Kiesel’s Family Style
Kiesel can get as rad as you wanna be, including characterful flourishes like this naturally figured wood with pools of radiant blue finish and an organically striking neck.
Kiesel Guitars has essentially always been a custom-order builder, even if its name and line of business has evolved. The L.C. Kiesel Company was founded in 1946 by Lowell Kiesel as a manufacturer of pickups he sold from the back pages of magazines. As it grew, he renamed it after two of his sons, Carson and Gavin, as the well-known brand Carvin, which became famous as a maker of quality guitars, amps, and instrument parts. In 2015, the company split, Lowell’s son Mark and his son Jeff established the guitar-building operation under the Kiesel name. Today, thanks to their high-caliber construction and endorsees like Allan Holdsworth, Devin Townsend, Craig Chaquico, Jason Becker, and Johnny Hiland, the company makes more than 4,000 custom-order guitars a year.
“We have four types of construction: bolt-on, set-neck, set-through, and neck-through,” explains VP Jeff Kiesel. The company also offers the unusual choice of nine different headstocks, which most manufacturers limit to one style as part of branding, and sans-headstock models, which Kiesel began making in 2012 with the debut of its Allan Holdsworth model. All Kiesel headstocks have an 8 1/2-degree tilt, to create a steeper string angle over the nut, which can potentially improve tone and sustain.
At work on a body in the Kiesel factory, which produces about 4,000 custom-order guitars annually.
“We’re appealing to everybody because we do so many different things.”—Jeff Kiesel
“We never build the headstock separate from the neck and then scarf joint them in—it’s all one piece,” Kiesel adds. Necks are also quarter-sawn, with a two-way truss rod, dual carbon-fiber reinforcement rods, stainless steel frets, and Lunimlay side dots.
After that, ordering a Kiesel is all about options. There are 56 models, including signatures, to choose from. Once you select a model on the company’s website, you’re taken to a page that includes a builder menu. Kiesel’s lowest-priced models, including the Delos, start at $1,649, while the top-priced, flagship K-Series model starts at $4,399.
The Aries, one of Kiesel’s most popular guitars, starts at a base of $1,699 with a bolt-on neck and has a menu that includes, under general options, right- or left-hand orientation; the choice of 6, 7, 8, or 9 strings; multiscale necks; and 25 1/2", 26 1/2", or 27" scale lengths. Under body options, you can select beveled or unbeveled edges, and eight different body and 16 different top woods. There are more than 80 finishes to choose from, and 14 variations on the Kiesel logo. The neck options are equally rich, with five fretboard radius selections plus choices for neck wood, three neck profiles, inlays, truss rod covers, and more. The electronic options boast four pickup configurations, five different Kiesel neck and bridge pickup models, and additional alternatives. It’s easy to get lost in the woods, but when you emerge, an image of your guitar with all its appointments, generated as you make your choices, is waiting for you.
“Our lead time is seven to 12 weeks,” Kiesel says, “and we offer a 10-day trial period unless somebody gets too wild on their options.” Anyone ordering a guitar is welcome to phone the company to talk over their order, and Kiesel highly recommends that first-time buyers call.
While Kiesel Guitars once had a reputation as a shredder-axe factory, Jeff Kiesel explains that’s changed over the past decade. “Our demographic is not set anymore,” he shares. “We’re appealing to everybody because we do so many different things. We can build a very classy jazz-style neck pickup on a semi-hollow guitar that you can play some amazing Frank Gambale licks on. And then we can turn around and build a guitar that will do some really technical modern metal, like Marc Okubo. We can build really wild or really classy, and that’s created so much growth within our company.”
Fender’s Mod Shop
Ted created this “dream Strat” with a silverburst finish, noiseless single-coils, and a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge using Fender’s Mod Shop online tool.
Like Gibson, Fender’s Mod Shop is about personalizing classic templates—in this case, the Strat, Tele, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, P and J basses, and Acoustasonic Telecasters and Jazzmasters. And while the program was birthed in 2014 as the American Design Experience, it evolved into the Mod Shop and has continued to improve, most recently with an update this April that made the online menu easier to use and added more options.
“We know that 80 percent of customers will be loyal to brands where they can personalize and customize,” says Shannon Stokes, Fender’s VP of eCommerce. “So the whole online user experience has been finessed. It’s much easier to navigate on both desktop and mobile. You move through it choosing the orientation of the guitar, the finish … everything through the pickguard, the hardware.”
Justin Norvell, Fender’s VP of product, observes, “This is a playground, and you’re able to just mess around and see what appeals to you. We allow people to save their configurations to PDFs, and they can share them and send them out,” akin to trading cards. “There’s an exponential number of people that might sit on their favorite design for a year before they actually place an order.” Some hardcore fans buy multiple variations of a favorite-style guitar over time, “because you can engrave the neck plate, collect multiple finishes, and other cool stuff. This is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too,” he adds.
Fender’s Justin Norvell with his own dream machine: an American Professional Jazzmaster in mystic seafoam.
“This is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too.”—Fender’s Justin Norvell
“What’s amazing to me,” says Shannon Stokes, Fender’s VP of eCommerce, “is the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.”
The cost of a Mod Shop guitar is an upcharge of several hundred dollars, with certain customizations increasing the tab. I decided to jump in and outfit a Strat, with a base price of $2,085, to my taste. After selecting the right-hand player’s orientation, I chose an alder body with a silverburst finish from a palette of nearly 50 colors and wood offerings that also included chambered ash, mahogany, and roasted pine. For the neck, I went with solid rosewood with Fender’s deep-C profile. Eight maple variations were also available. That neck option automatically led me to a rosewood fretboard, and then I hunted through 16 pickup configurations before stopping at the Generation 4 Noiseless Stratocaster set. I opted for a 4-ply black pearl pickguard, and aged white plastic controls and pickup frames. Next, from three bridge choices I tapped a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge. Chrome Fender strap lock buttons would do the job, since I’ve had un-strap-locked guitars fall to the stage at gigs in years past. For strings, a set for .010s, and the only case option is deluxe molded plastic with a fuzzy interior. Total cost: $2,175, which is not bad for those modest-but-swell appointments. I also downloaded a PDF, so you can see what I designed. Unhappy with the purchase? It can be returned within 30 days for a refund or exchange, plus shipping.
There’s about a half-dozen builders in the Mod Shop, but workers from the normal production line can be called in when there is an uptick in commissions, Norvell explains.
“What’s amazing to me,” says Stokes, “is the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I love the satin orange because it’s vibrant, different. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.” But players often look for instruments that are evocative of classic guitars they’ve seen. And 6-string dreams do come in all shades.
