
Sorry Kermit, it is easy being green. From recycling and repurposing old gear, to the larger movement for harvesting sustainable woods, we explore ways players can soften their impact on the natural world.
Guitar players love making messes. Slathering on too much fuzz at inopportune times, peaking VU meters, and rendering separation useless in the studio. It goes with the territory. True, sometimes you need complete isolation or the pristine precision of a Steely Dan record, but more often than not, there's something special about getting gross with your guitar.
But that's just aesthetics.
Unfortunately, guitarists also generate a lot of physical waste. Old strings, picks, batteries, and tubes need to be disposed of. Blown speakers, frayed wires, trashed amps, unwanted enclosures, and fried electronics need to be discarded as well. For better or worse, modern music making generates a small mountain of unwanted junk.
But don't fretāpun intendedāthese are solvable problems. Options and innovations abound.
In this modest dissertation, we focus on three areas: recycling waste, innovative repurposing of discarded materials, andāat what first glance might seem like a side pointāsustainable harvesting of wood.
Part I talks about garbage. Some things, like guitar strings and metal amp chassis, are easy to recycle and might even have marketable value. But others, like old tubes and single-use batteries, raise difficult questions and could be too much troubleāor just too expensiveāto recycle.
Part II profiles two innovative businessesāWallace Detroit Guitars and Analog Outfittersāthat do incredible things while repurposing old materials. Each company, in its own manner, has found a way to turn trash into treasure.
Part III is about wood. Most guitars are made of wood and many of those woods are rare and expensive. But two of those woods, rosewood and ebony, are becoming scarce. That scarcity has raised enough alarm that CITESāthe international body that deals with such mattersāhas imposed new, strict regulations. But it isn't as bleak as it sounds. We focus our attention on the important initiatives being made to develop a more sustainable model for both the growing and harvesting of these precious tonewoods.
"Above all, don't put metal in your trash." āChristopher Bosso, professor of public policy at Northeastern University
In this story, we speak with entrepreneurs, captains of industry, tenured professors, and other experts to give you an overview of these complex and sometimes complicated issues. There's a lot more to say, but consider this a thorough introduction. Ultimately, guitar players make messes, but for the most part, those messesāat least the non-musical onesācan be cleaned up.
Part I: Responsible Junk Disposal
Broken strings, worn out picks, dead batteries, fried circuits, non-functioning gear, stripped cables, and blown tubesāwhat should you do with all that junk?
Strings
Electric guitar strings are made from different types of metal and that's true for most acoustic guitar strings, too (with the obvious exception of nylon). Those metals include steel, nickel, cobalt, bronze, and various other alloys.
But guitar strings don't last forever. They wear out, break, or get crusty and gross, and at some point, you must change them. Most players change their strings on a regular basis. Many pros change them every gig.
What should you do with your old strings? Should you throw them in the trash?
"Anything with metal in it should be recycled," Christopher Bosso, a professor of public policy at Northeastern University says. "It has material value and local recycling programs actually give money for that."
D'Addario recently made string recycling easier for guitar players, with their Playback program, which allows players to drop off unwanted strings at more than 400 music retail spots around the U.S., including all Guitar Center locations. As an incentive, those who join the program earn points for recycling that can be used toward new strings or gear.
Through the Playback string recycling program, D'Addario and partner TerraCycle have recycled over 1.2 million strings in 2017. A reported 1.5 million pounds of strings are accumulated in landfills each year.
You can also take matters into your own hands. Ben Juday, the founder of Analog Outfitters, a company that builds amplifiers from repurposed Hammond organs, recommends having special bins for metal waste. "I have a couple of 5-gallon pails in my garage," he says. "Any scrap or bit of wire, brass or copper, or any little bitāanything from guitar strings to cans to little pieces of steelāI put in there and either put it out for the scrappers or take it to the scrapyard."
Scrapyards pay for junk metal, melt it down, and resell it. But don't expect to get rich recycling strings. "You would have to have a heck of a lot," Bosso says. "Scrapyards deal with significant amounts. Obviously, there's an aggregator. Cities and towns that do that place big magnets over their recyclables and anything that's metal gets pulled to a separate place. It's then sold by the ton or gets separated into the different types of metals, depending on where it is in the waste stream. More recyclables than we care to admit don't actually end up being recycled. But anything that has metal in it is of value in the marketplace. The real trick is, how do you get that into the right stream? If you put your strings into a recycling container or where the collection bin is, that's better than tossing it into the trash. Above all, don't put metal in your trash."
Batteries
Most effects pedals used to run on batteries, though the industry trend seems to be moving away from that. "I've probably sold close to 1,000 pedals and I've only had two people ask about batteries," Eric Junge, the owner of Hungry Robot Pedals, told us in an earlier interview ("Stompbox Savants," September 2016"). "I think the general consensus is, most people aren't using batteries anymore," he added. "A lot of my designs are very tight internallyāI couldn't even fit a battery into a couple of them. So my take is, 'Am I going to make this pedal bigger for the 0.1 percent of the public that's going to use a battery?'"
That said, some players still rely on batteries and they are recyclable, although most communities are not set up to handle them. "In an ideal world, you would take these single-use batteries and figure out a way to recycle them," Bosso says. "But hardly any states have recycling programs for single-use batteries. Car batteries do have a very high recycle rate. That's because they contain a valuable metal, lead, and they're big, and most times they are replaced by professionals at repair shops. You have a collection process, market value, and there is actually a process to extract the metal and other stuff from the batteries. There is a very high rate of recycling for car batteries as contrasted to consumer batteries."
In 1996, legislation was passed to phase out the use of mercury in batteries, making it legal in most states to dispose of single-use alkaline batteries via the regular trash. But single-use batteries can still be recycled at local recycling centers, along with rechargeable batteries and other electronic waste, which are restricted from being tossed in with regular trash.
Destroyed Amps, Fried Circuits, and the Forgotten Gear Graveyard
Anyone who's played long enoughāand loud enoughāhas probably fried their fair share of circuits, amps, and speakers. (For example, I fried the output circuitry on my Peavey Heritage 2x12 combo twice. Smoke billowed from the chassis and everything. The second time was at an audition. I didn't get the gig.) You can leave your old gear in the garage. You can convert it into a lamp or coffee table. Orābelieve it or notāyou can sell it. Reverb even has a category for non-functioning gear. "Keep in mind," the site claims, "there are still plenty of buyers out there who are in the market for project guitars and other fixer-upper items."
Juday agrees. "I partly got my start by buying broken equipment, fixing it, and reselling it back in my repair days. There are people who want broken gear for a bargain." But if no one wants it, bring the metal parts to the scrapyard. "Take out the speaker and metal chassis and take that to a local scrapyard. They weigh it and pay you for the scrap metal. That metal is chopped up, melted down, and turned into new steel. However, there really isn't a good way to recycle the wooden cabinet. Your best bet is to break it down with a sledgehammer and throw the wooden enclosure away."
Circuit boards and non-functioning electronics are recyclable as well. Your local scrapyard will take them. However, the EPA also lists several retailersāincluding Staples and Best Buyāthat have buy-back and drop-off programs. "If you want to see some interesting videos," Juday says, "search 'circuit board recycling.' You would not believe what they're able to do by grinding them up and melting them down. A circuit board has all kinds of precious metalsālike gold and silverāand also harmful metals like lead and cadmium. They can all be recovered through the recycling process."
Tubes, Cables, and Picks
What should you do with blown tubes? Short of converting them into shot glasses, not much. "People say, 'You should recycle them,'" Bosso says. "But the response is, 'Where do I take them? What's going to happen to them?' It's a pain in the ass to do it. Cities and towns will hold the occasional eWaste day. You bring them your eWaste and what happens, frankly, is oftentimes it is put in a big container and shipped off to developing countries where someone might try to get the metals out of it."
"Anything with metal in it should be recycled." āChristopher Bosso, professor of public policy at Northeastern University
Juday agrees. "There's not a good way of recycling tubes, which is unfortunate," he says. "The good news is they don't have very much metal in them. They do have some precious metal in there, like tungsten and other metals, but it's in such small quantities that it's not really worth anything."
Your frayed cables can be disposed of like other metals and the copper wiring can be reused for various projects. Some even claim you can use old braided and shielded cable as solder wick (Visit Instructibles.com for " How to Recycle an Old Dead Cable" article.), but the verdict is out on that.
There's also not much you can do with your old, beaten, worn-out picks. "Some plastics are recyclable," Bosso says. "They have some value in the marketplace because they can be reused. But a lot of plastics increasingly don't have much market value, so cities and towns may end up incinerating it."
However, there is a trend for converting old credit cards, vinyl records, and other hard plastics into picks. If you feel a connection to your last credit cardāor maybe if you've paid it offāyou can continue using it to make music.
Part II: Making Treasure out of Trash
Wallace Guitars uses reclaimed wood from abandoned Detroit buildings and houses. According to CEO Mark Wallace, old-growth pine dated between 1860 and 1930 yields favorable tonal characteristics.
Wallace Guitars
Wallace Detroit Guitars, based in Detroit, Michigan, builds guitars out of wood salvaged from the city's many abandoned properties. "When you're in Detroit, it's hard not to notice that there are a lot of vacant properties," Mark Wallace, the company's founder and CEO says. "It looks like these places should be torn down, thrown into a dumpster, and nobody should ever think about them. But what's exciting to me is that we're actually finding really incredible wood in those houses and turning that into instruments that stand up next to any handmade instrument."
Most of the wood comes from the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit, a local non-profit that functions as an unusual lumber yard. "We're not breaking into houses we don't own," Wallace says. "I walk into a warehouse that looks like a scene in Indiana Jones and it's full of reclaimed wood. I can see the wood, I can see the species, and they track which property a piece of wood came out of."
The most plentiful species of wood found in old Detroit houses, other than oak, is old-growth pine. "There are 60,000 vacant properties in Detroit and most of them have pine in the joist. I knew that if I could turn a pine two-by-four into a great guitar, I would have a supply that would last a very long time. I didn't know if it was going to workāso we spent a lot of time prototypingābecause pine has different characteristics from swamp ash, maple, or anything you traditionally make a guitar out of. What I discovered, which was really thrilling, is that the pine that comes out of houses that were built between 1860 and 1930 is generally pine that was grown in old-growth forests and it's very different from pine that is grown in modern forests. Typically, if you're trying to produce a two-by-four to sell at Lowe's or Home Depot, you're going to use trees that are spaced out a certain distance to maximize light and rainfall. You're going to hit them full of fertilizers to make them grow straight. You're going to trim them so they don't have any knots in them. In the old forests, every tree is competing with every other tree. They are fighting for sunlight and grow in a context of scarcity of natural resources. The reason that matters is that the growth rings you get from the old growth forests are much tighter than the growth rings you get from a modern forest. What I have is pine, and because it's so damn old, it's much more similar to ash, almost to maple, than pine you would typically expect to see in 2017. I've got this really beautiful stuff that has this really interesting performance characteristic to it."
The bodies are made from bonded-together two-by-fours and come in two styles: long grain and end grain. "The long-grain style is like racing stripes," Wallace says. "If we find trims made out of mahogany or walnut or something, we chop that up, plane it down, and slab it together. In terms of the standard pine, I really like showing off the history of the wood: the stains and the nail holes. [For the end grain], we do a long grain back and that forms the neck pocket. We then do a 5/8" cap on top where we expose the grain."
But working with these woods does pose unique challenges. "The big one is metal. Even if you use a metal detector, you still never know what's buried inside. We burn up a lot more blades than others do. Making sure the wood is dry to a consistent level is really important to us as well. Some of this stuff has been sitting outside for years."
Wallace guitars are constructed piecemeal by different teams of luthiers around Detroit. One group does the glue-ups, one does the planing, another does the sanding and finishing coat. The necks and set-ups are done separately as well, and the necks are made from maple. "I can't find enough consistent maple to do a reclaim," Wallace says. "We use Michigan maple and try to keep it in the state, but they're not reclaimed."
Illinois-based Analog Outfitters builds, or "up-cycles," amplifiers, cabinets, effects, and MIDI controllers out of parts scavenged from old Hammond Organs.
Analog Outfitters
Analog Outfitters, based just north of Champaign, in Rantoul, Illinois, builds amplifiers out of parts scavenged from old Hammond organs. "I started in 2002 as a repair/live sound company and did a lot of work on Hammond organs," Ben Juday, the company's founder says. "People would try to give me these old organs and I took a lot of them. They had no market valueāpeople were just throwing them awayāand I started messing around with them. In 2011, we started manufacturing amplifiers and it's continued since then."
Juday only dismantles organs that people don't wantāhe gets most of them for freeāand his biggest expense is hauling them back to his warehouse. "Sometimes people are upset with us for destroying these old instruments," he says. "But you've got to realize, the ones that we destroy literally [would otherwise] end up on the side of the road, in the rain, and in the landfill."
He tries to salvage, or "up-cycle," as he calls it, as much as he can from the organs as well. "We reuse the wood, the copper wiring, the amplifiers, and [even] the tubes whenever we can," he says. "Hammond used redwood, mahogany, walnut, and a lot of really good woodsāsome of which you can't even get any more. We use these premium woods in our wooden enclosures. We're not able to use all recycled materials, obviously, and I've never actually calculated the percentage, but a high percentage of the materials in our products are repurposed."
"If you saw our warehouse, we probably have about 100 organs that are not disassembled and another 200 that are." āBen Juday, Analog Outfitters
But Juday is motivated by more than just green considerations; he also thinks old organs, particularly their output transformers, sound great. He says vintage transformers, like vintage pickups, possess a special mojo not usually found in newer gear. "Many vintage transformers have that same magic sound and it has to do with how they were wound," he says. "They used methods that are more expensive to do and today people have taken shortcuts. The thing to remember about a guitar ampāa tube guitar ampāis that the output transformer is the most important part of the whole amp. It's like the transmission in your car. I don't care how good your engine is, if you don't have a way to harness that power with a good transmission, you're not going anywhere. It's the same thing with a guitar amp. The output transformer takes the energy created by that amplifier and couples it to your speaker. If you don't have a good coupling device, you're never going to get the tone that you want."
Building amps from repurposed materials isn't simple or cheap. "It's not like we just flip a few wires," Juday says. It's a painstaking process that involves transporting, dismantling, cataloging, and warehousing the reclaimed materials. "If you saw our warehouse, we probably have about 100 organs that are not disassembled and another 200 that areāthe transformers are here, the amp chassis are here, the speakers go over here, the wood is catalogued here, the wiring goes here. It's a pretty involved process." Plus, reworking an existing chassis also involves a lot of metal work, like drilling new holes and stripping away unwanted parts. "It probably takes more labor to do it the way we do, but the best form of recycling is repurposing and we really are repurposing a lot of those old parts."
Here's Analog Outfitters Scanner that was reviewed by PG and is used onstage by Doyle Bramhall II.
Analog Outfitters doesn't just build amps. They make the Scanner, which repurposes the vibrato and reverb units from old Hammond organs. They make a MIDI controller from repurposed keyboards. They use the organ's woodāwhen they're not using decommissioned street signsāto make speaker cabinets and enclosures. But they can't use everything.
"People try to give us organs from the '70s," Juday says. "We have to say no, because the wood that they used was particle chipboard, which is essentially junk, and the amps were transistor based. So those 1970s organs are of no value to us. We don't have the room to take those and to try to recycle them. But anything from the '50s or '60s, that used real solid wood and vacuum tube components, has value to us."
Part III: Wood
Bob Taylor walks in the Cameroon bush during a visit in 2017. Taylor Guitarsāin partnership with Madinter Trade, a Spain-based supplier of tonewoodsārecently purchased an ebony mill in Cameroon, an African country on the Gulf of Guinea.
Photo courtesy of Taylor Guitars
In January 2017, CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which, according to their website, is "an international agreement between governments whose aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival," listed the entire Dalbergia genusāi.e. every species of rosewoodāas Appendix II. That means, in a nutshell, that rosewood is considered a species at risk and its international usage is regulated.
Needless to say, that sent the guitar world into a tizzy.
"Basically, what happened is there has been growing demand for rosewood, mainly from China," Eric Meier, the author of WOOD! Identifying and Using Hundreds of Woods Worldwide and the administrator of The Wood Database, says. "I'm not trying to completely blame the Chinese, but they have a growing middle class and a cultural tradition of rosewood furniture. The resurgence in demand for rosewood furniture is an unprecedented amount of global demand, which was the main contributing factor. Obviously, there are other factors as well, but that was the main contributing factor for the CITES decision. CITES controls how and when wood moves across international borders."
However, according to Meier, the regulation does have a provision for touring musicians. "This doesn't affect Brazilian rosewood, which has always been restricted," he says. "But for the other species of rosewood they've put the limit at 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds) and non-commercial. Basically, as long as you're not selling the instrumentāit isn't a commercial transaction, you're just traveling with itāthen it's exempted."
"One small piece of rosewood on the guitar makes it a CITES-controlled product, forever." āBob Taylor, Taylor Guitars
That isn't the case if you want to sell a guitar, even if you're selling a used instrument. "It's affected the guitar business in a negative way," Bob Taylor, the founder and CEO of Taylor Guitars, says. "People think that the 'guitar business' is conducted only by corporations. That is a false idea, because guitars are durable and last for a century or more. In that time, those guitars will have many owners. In today's world, individuals sell used guitars all day every day, often across borders. This doesn't happen with flooring, or even most furniture, for example. It's just as illegal for a person with a 20-year-old guitar to sell it across a border without all the proof and paperwork as it is for Taylor Guitars to do so with a new guitar. As the CITES rosewood regulation is currently written, it criminalizes people who have no idea or even the ability to know about the legality of a certain guitar. One small piece of rosewood on the guitar makes it a CITES-controlled product, forever. You can see the problem with this. It's relatively easy for Taylor Guitars to comply because we are a business and we deal in new guitars. We know exactly what pieces of wood are in them, their botanical names, where they came from, and we have the accompanying proof. We also know the management authorities around the world. We have the good fortune of a good reputation. We know how to file the paperwork. It isn't easy, but we can comply. It's very hard for an individual, who is the third owner of a guitar to comply, because he has to know all this, too, and prove it."
The challenge is greater for smaller, boutique buildersāespecially those who have been in business for a long time. "Most of the sources that we have always gotten wood fromāand 'we' means the guitar-building community at largeāare places that have done this forever," Amilcar Dohrn-Melendez, the materials buyer for Ryan Guitars, says. "A lot is older material, which is really good for us, and is the stuff that's harder to track. Kevin [Ryan] has been building for 30 years and he has material that is that old. Most shops do. When you get serious about building guitars, a lot of your investment early on is to get those source materials. You can use them forever and the longer they cure, the better. Guitar builders are wired to be like squirrels and keep gathering stuff. But how do you find out who the person you bought it from bought it from if you bought it 10 years ago? You can imagine, if it was longer than 15 or 20 years ago, it's just a wash in terms of how any of us kept track."
"We're married to ebony because it works," says Bob Taylor. "Substitutes don't work as well. Plus, they have their own sustainability problems." This majestic ebony tree resides in a forest in Cameroon, in Central Africa.
Photo courtesy of Taylor Guitars
Ebony is another wood the guitar building community is concerned about, especially since it's one of the best woods to use for fretboards. "As a builder, one of the things I would say about ebony is that structurally it takes frets really well," Dohrn-Melendez says. "The density and how stiff it isāeven compared to rosewoodāfrets just grab on and hold on like you want them to."
"We're married to ebony because it works," Taylor adds. "Substitutes don't work as well. Plus, they have their own sustainability problems. It's good to realize that guitars aren't the only instruments that depend upon ebony. Violins, cellos, contra-basses, also use it. I think it's better to conserve and regrow ebony than to look for alternatives."
Along those lines, Taylorāin partnership with Madinter Trade, a Spain-based supplier of tonewoodsāpurchased an ebony mill in Cameroon. Learning about woods at their source changed Taylor's opinion about what types of ebony were suitable for use. "When we first arrived, we found out from suppliers that they cut down many trees to find one with a pure black heart. Not all ebony trees are pure black and many trees were simply left to rot. That was not acceptable to us. I thought the wood was beautiful, and I felt I was in a positionānot as a supplier of ebony, but as a maker of guitarsāto change perception. Today, we are repurposing much of the colored wood into sides and backs. We had to build a lot of capabilities, but it's a great use of that material, and we don't have to depend upon using it solely on fingerboards."
Taylor Guitars is committed to replanting and conserving ebony through the Cameroon Project. The first stage of the project planted 15,000 seedlings in the Crelicam nursery, with the goal of supplying instrument manufacturers with high-quality ebony in the future.
Photo courtesy of Taylor Guitars
Part of the challenge, in terms of sustainability, is that trees take a long time to grow. "Some of the controversy in Madagascar was someone cut down protected trees in the national forest," Meier says. "The trees were 200 or 300 years old. Yes, trees can grow back, but if you just consider that that was a 200-year-old treeāthere is an element of timing. Is it realistically going to be sustainable in our lifetime?"
However, in spite of that, Taylor is planting new trees. "We have a huge project to replant ebony and it's in full swing," Taylor says. "In fact, we just signed a public-private partnership with the government of Cameroon on November 14, 2017, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, to cooperate on our initiative. We are partnered with the Congo Basin Institute in YaoundƩ, Cameroon, which has UCLA as the driving partner. Professor Tom Smith, the director of the Center for Tropical Research, has spent 35 years working in Cameroon on forest-related science. There is top-notch science being implemented with them as our partner. Together, we are making progress planting ebony as well as fruit and medicine trees in villages, and the villages own these projects. This first stage of the project will plant 15,000 ebony trees. My partner Vidal de Teresa from Madinter Trade in Spain oversees the work."
One thing that isn't possibleāat least not on a significant scaleāis growing these tropical trees in greenhouses. "What you need is good site location, good soil, and good seeds," Taylor says. "Hawaii is a contender to grow ebony, rosewood, and mahogany. There's a lot of mahogany already on Hawaii, so we know it grows well there. There is also the topic of improving the species through planting shoots from a good tree, thus copying that tree's qualities. With time, we may be able to crossbreed trees as well to make certain varieties that serve us well, just like it's done with edible plants. While we haven't crossbred anything yet, we have grown new trees from cuttings of trees we like."
"The environment that these trees grow in has so much to do with what they become as trees and, then by proxy, how we can use them as builders," Dohrn-Melendez says. "It's a difficult thing to manufacture. For example, you have to have a rainforest if you want to grow Brazilian rosewood. You might not have to go to Brazil, but Nebraska isn't going to cut it."
[Updated 8/10/21]
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Stevie Van Zandt with āNumber One,ā the ā80s reissue Stratocasterāwith custom paisley pickguard from luthier Dave Petilloāthat heās been playing for the last quarter century or so.
With the E Street Band, heās served as musical consigliere to Bruce Springsteen for most of his musical life. And although he stands next to the Boss onstage, guitar in hand, heās remained mostly quiet about his work as a playerāuntil now.
Iām stuck in Stevie Van Zandtās elevator, and the New York City Fire Department has been summoned. Itās early March, and I am trapped on the top floor of a six-story office building in Greenwich Village. On the other side of this intransigent door is Van Zandtās recording studio, his guitars, amps, and other instruments, his Wicked Cool Records offices, and his man cave. The latter is filled with so much day-glo baby boomer memorabilia that itās like being dropped into a Milton Glaser-themed fantasy landāa bright, candy-colored chandelier swings into the room from the skylight.
Thereās a life-size cameo of a go-go dancer in banana yellow; sheās frozen in mid hip shimmy. One wall displays rock posters and B-movie key art, anchored by a 3D rendering of Creamās Disraeli Gearsalbum cover that swishes and undulates as you walk past it. Van Zandtās shelves are stuffed with countless DVDs, from Louis Prima to the J. Geils Band performing on the German TV concert seriesRockpalast. There are three copies ofIggy and the Stooges: Live in Detroit. Videos of the great ā60s-music TV showcases, from Hullabaloo to Dean Martinās The Hollywood Palace, sit here. Hundreds of books about rock ānā roll, from Greil Marcusās entire output to Nicholas Schaffnerās seminal tome, The Beatles Forever, form a library in the next room.
But I havenāt seen this yet because the elevator is dead, and I am in it. Our trap is tiny, about 5' by 5'. A dolly filled with television production equipment is beside me. Thereās a production assistant whom Iāve never met until this morning and another person whoās brand new to me, too, Geoff Sanoff. It turns out that heās Van Zandtās engineerāthe guy who runs this studio. And as Iāll discover shortly, heās also one of the several sentinels who watch over Stevie Van Zandtās guitars.
Thereās nothing to do now but wait for the NYFD, so Sanoff and I get acquainted. We discover weāre both from D.C. and know some of the same people in Washingtonās music scene. We talk about gear. We talk about this television project. Iām here today assisting an old pal, director Erik Nelson, best known for producing Werner Herzogās most popular documentaries, like Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Van Zandt has agreed to participate in a television pilot about the British Invasion. After about half an hour, the elevator doors suddenly slide open, and weāre rescued, standing face-to-face with three New York City firefighters.
As our camera team sets up the gear, Sanoff beckons me to a closet off the studioās control room. I get the sense I am about to get a consolation prize for standing trapped in an elevator for the last 30 minutes. He pulls a guitar case off the shelfāitās stenciled in paint with the words āLittle Stevenā on its topāsnaps open the latches, and instantly I am face to face with Van Zandtās well-worn 1957 Stratocaster. Sanoff hands it to me, and Iām suddenly holding what may as well be the thunderbolt of Zeus for an E Street Band fan. My jaw drops when he lets me plug it in so he can get some levels on his board, and the clean, snappy quack of the nearly 70-year-old pickups fills the studio. For decades, Springsteen nuts have enjoyed a legendary 1978 filmed performance of āRosalitaā from Phoenix, Arizona, that now lives on YouTube. This is the Stratocaster Van Zandt had slung over his shoulder that night. Itās the same guitar he wields in the famous No Nukes concert film shot at Madison Square Garden a year later, in 1979. My mind races. The British Invasion is all well and essential. But now Iām thinking about Van Zandtās relationship with his guitars.
Stevie Van Zandt's Gear
Van Zandtās guitar concierge Andy Babiuk helped him plunge deeper down the Rickenbacker rabbit hole. Currently, Van Zandt has six Rickenbackers backstage: two 6-strings and four 12-strings.
Guitars
- 1957 Fender Stratocaster (studio only)
- ā80s Fender ā57 Stratocaster reissue āNumber Oneā
- Gretsch Tennessean
- 1955 GibsonĀ Les Paul Custom āBlack Beautyā (studio only)
- Rickenbacker Fab Gear 2024 Limited Edition ā60s Style 360 Model (candy apple green)
- Rickenbacker Fab Gear 2023 Limited Edition ā60s Style 360 Model (snowglo)
- Rickenbacker 2018 Limited Edition ā60s Style 360 Fab Gear (jetglo)
- Two Rickenbacker 1993Plus 12-strings (candy apple purple and SVZ blue)
- Rickenbacker 360/12C63 12-string (fireglo)
- Vox Teardrop (owned by Andy Babiuk)
Amps
- Two Vox AC30s
- Two Vox 2x12 cabinets
Effects
- Boss Space Echo
- Boss Tremolo
- Boss Rotary Ensemble
- Durham Electronics Sex Drive
- Durham Electronics Mucho Busto
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Van Zandt has reached a stage of reflection in his career. Besides the Grammy-nominated HBO film, Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, which came out in 2024, he recently wrote and published his autobiography, Unrequited Infatuations (2021), a rollicking read in which he pulls no punches and makes clear he still strives to do meaningful things in music and life.
His laurels would weigh him down if they were actually wrapped around his neck. In the E Street Band, Van Zandt has participated in arguably the most incredible live group in rock ānā roll history. And donāt forget Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes or Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. He created both the Underground Garage and Outlaw Country radio channels on Sirius/XM. He started a music curriculum program called TeachRock that provides no-cost resources and other programs to schools across the country. Then thereās the politics. Via his 1985 record, Sun City, Van Zandt is credited with blasting many of the load-bearing bricks that brought the walls of South African apartheid tumbling into dust. He also acted in arguably the greatest television drama in American history, with his turn as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos.
Puzzlingly, Van Zandtās autobiography lacks any detail on his relationship with the electric guitar. And Sanoff warns me that Van Zandt is ānot a gearhead.ā Instead he has an organization in place to keep his guitar life spinning like plates on the end of pointed sticks. Besides Sanoff, there are three others: Ben Newberry has been Van Zandtās guitar tech since the beginning of 1982. Andy Babiuk, owner of Rochester, New York, guitar shop Fab Gear and author of essential collector reference books Beatles Gear and Rolling Stones Gear (the latter co-authored by Greg Prevost) functions as Van Zandtās guitar concierge. Lastly, luthier Dave Petillo, based in Asbury Park, New Jersey, oversees all the maintenance and customization on Van Zandtās axes.
āI took one lesson, and they start to teach you the notes. I donāt care about the notes.ā āStevie Van Zandt
I crawl onto Zoom with Van Zandt for a marathon session and come away from our 90 minutes with the sense that he is a man of dichotomies. Sure, heās a guitar slinger, but he considers his biggest strengths to be as an arranger, producer, and songwriter. āI donāt feel that being a guitar player is my identity,ā he tells me. āFor 40 years, ever since I made my first solo record, I just have not felt that I express myself as a guitar player. I still enjoy it when I do it; Iām not ambivalent. When I play a solo, I am in all the way, and I play a solo like I would like to hear if I were in the audience. But the guitar part is really part of the songās arrangement. And a great solo is a composed solo. Great solos are ones you can sing, like Jimi Hendrixās solo in āAll Along the Watchtower.āā
In his autobiography, Van Zandt mentions that his first guitar was an acoustic belonging to his grandfather. āI took one lesson, and they start to teach you the notes. I donāt care about the notes,ā Van Zandt tells me. āThe teacher said I had natural ability. Iām thinking, if I got natural ability, then what the fuck do I need you for? So I never went back. After that, I got my first electric, an Epiphone. It was about slowing down the records to figure out with my ear what they were doing. It was seeing live bands and standing in front of that guitar player and watching what they were doing. It was praying when a band went on TV that the cameraman would occasionally go to the right place and show what the guitar player was doing instead of putting the camera on the lead singer all the time. And Iām sure it was the same for everybody. There was no concept of rock ānā roll lessons. School of Rock wouldnāt exist for another 30 years. So, you had to go to school yourself.ā
By the end of the 1960s, Van Zandt tells me he had made a conscious decision about what kind of player he wanted to be. āI realized that I really wasnāt that interested in becoming a virtuoso guitar player, per se. I was more interested in making sure I could play the guitar solo that would complement the song. I got more into the songs than the nature of musicianship.ā
After the Beatles and the Stones broke the British Invasion wide open, bands like Cream and the Yardbirds most influenced him. āGeorge Harrison would have that perfect 22-second guitar solo,ā Van Zandt remembers. āKeith Richards. Dave Davies. Then, the harder stuff started coming. Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds. Eric Clapton with things like āWhite Room.ā But the songs stayed in a pop configuration, three minutes each or so. Youād have this cool guitar-based song with a 15-second, really amazing Jeff Beck solo in it. Thatās what I liked. Later, the jam bands came, but I was not into that. My attention deficit disorder was not working for the longer solos,ā he jokes. Watch a YouTube video of any recent E Street Band performance where Van Zandt solos, and the punch and impact of his approach and attack are apparent. At Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., last year, his solo on āRosalitaā was 13 powerful seconds.
Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteenās relationship goes back to their earliest days on the Jersey shore. āEverybody had a different guitar; your guitar was your identity,ā recalls Van Zandt. āAt some point, a couple of years later, I remember Bruce calling me and asking me for my permission to switch to Telecaster. At that point, I was ready to switch to Stratocaster.ā
Photo by Pamela Springsteen
Van Zandt left his Epiphone behind for his first Fender. āI started to notice that the guitar superstars at the time were playing Telecasters. Mike Bloomfield. Jeff Beck. Even Eric Clapton played one for a while,ā he tells me. āI went down to Jackās Music Shop in Red Bank, New Jersey, because he had the first Telecaster in our area and couldnāt sell it; it was just sitting there. I bought it for 90 bucks.ā
In those days, and around those parts, players only had one guitar. Van Zandt recalls, āEverybody had a different guitar; your guitar was your identity. At some point, a couple of years later, I remember Bruce calling me and asking me for my permission to switch to Telecaster. At that point, I was ready to switch to Stratocaster, because Jimi Hendrix had come in and Jeff Beck had switched to a Strat. They all kind of went from Telecaster to Les Pauls. And then some of them went on to the Stratocaster. For me, the Les Paul was just too out of reach. It was too expensive, and it was just too heavy. So I said, Iām going to switch to a Stratocaster. It felt a little bit more versatile.ā
Van Zandt still employs Stratocasters, and besides the 1957 I strummed, he was seen with several throughout the ā80s and ā90s. But for the last 20 or 25 years, Van Zandt has mainly wielded a black Fender ā57 Strat reissue from the ā80s with a maple fretboard and a gray pearloid pickguard. He still uses that Stratādubbed āNumber Oneāābut the pickguard has been switched to one sporting a purple paisley pattern that was custom-made by Dave Petillo.
Petillo comes from New Jersey luthier royalty and followed in the footsteps of his late father, Phil Petillo. At a young age, the elder Petillo became an apprentice to legendary New York builder John DāAngelico. Later, he sold Bruce Springsteen the iconic Fender Esquire thatās seen on the Born to Run album cover and maintained and modified that guitar and all of Bruceās other axes until he passed away in 2010. Phil worked out of a studio in the basement of their home, not far from Asbury Park. Artists dropped in, and Petillo has childhood memories of playing pick-up basketball games in his backyard with members of the E Street Band. (He also recalls showing his Lincoln Logs to Johnny Cash and once mistaking Jerry Garcia for Santa Claus.)
āI was more interested in making sure I could play the guitar solo that would complement the song. I got more into the songs than the nature of musicianship.ā āStevie Van Zandt
āIāve known Stevie Van Zandt my whole life,ā says Petillo. āMy dad used to work on his 1957 Strat. That guitar today has updated tuners, a bone nut, new string trees, and a refret that was done by Dad long ago. I think one volume pot may have been changed. But it still has the original pickups.ā Petillo is responsible for a lot of the aesthetic flair seen on Van Zandtās instruments. He continues, āStevie is so much fun to work with. I love incorporating colors into things, and Stevie gets that. When you talk to a traditional Telecaster or Strat player, and you say, āI want to do a tulip paisley pickguard in neon blue-green,ā theyāre like, āHoly cow, thatās too much!ā But for Stevie, itās just natural. So I always text him with pickguard designs, asking him, āWhich one do you like?ā And he calls me a wild man; he says, āI donāt have that many Strats to put them on!ā But Iāll go to Ben Newberry and say, āBen, I made these pickguards; letās get them on the guitar. And Iāll go backstage, and weāll put them on. I just love that relationship; Stevie is down for it.ā
Petillo takes care of the electronics on Van Zandtās guitars. Almost all of the Strats are modified with an internal Alembic Stratoblaster preamp circuit, which Van Zandt can physically toggle on and off using a switch housed just above the input jack. Van Zandt tells me, āThat came because I got annoyed with the whole pedal thing. Iām a performer onstage, and Iām integrated with the audience and I like the freedom to move. And if Iām across the stage and all of a sudden Bruce nods to me to take a solo, or thereās a bit in the song that requires a little bit of distortion, itās just easier to have that; sometimes, Iāll need that extra little boost for a part Iām throwing in, and itās convenient.ā
In recent times, Van Zandt has branched out from the Stratocaster, which has a lot to do with Andy Babiuk's influence. The two met 20 years ago, and Babiukās band, the Chesterfield Kings, is on Van Zandtās Wicked Cool Records. āHeād call me up and ask me things like, āWhatās Brian Jones using on this song?āā explains Babiuk. āWhen Iād ask him why, heād tell me, āBecause I want to have that guitar.ā Itās a common thing for me to get calls and texts from him like that. And thereās something many people overlook that Stevie doesnāt advertise: Heās a ripping guitar player. People think of him as playing chords and singing backup for Bruce, but the guy rips. And not just on guitar, on multiple instruments.ā
Van Zandt tells me he wanted to bring more 12-string to the E Street Band this tour, ājust to kind of differentiate the tone.ā He explains, āNils is doing his thing, and Bruce is doing his thing, and I wanted to do more 12-string.ā He laughs, āI went full Paul Kantner!ā Babiuk helped Van Zandt plunge deeper down the Rickenbacker rabbit hole. Currently, Van Zandt has six Rickenbackers backstage: two 6-strings and four 12-strings. Each 12-string has a modified nut made by Petillo from ancient woolly mammoth tusk, and the D, A, and low E strings are inverted with their octave.
Van Zandt explains this to me: āI find that the strings ring better when the high ones are on top. Iām not sure if thatās how Roger McGuinn did it, but it works for me. Iām also playing a wider neck.ā
Babiuk tells me about a unique Rick in Van Zandtās rack of axes: āI know the guys at Rickenbacker well, and they did a run of 30 basses in candy apple purple for my shop. I showed one to Stevie, and purple is his color; he loves it. He asked me to get him a 12-string in the same color, and I told him, āThey donāt do one-offs; they donāt have a custom shop,ā but itās hard to say no to the guy! So I called Rickenbacker and talked them into it. I explained, āHeāll play it a lot on this upcoming tour.ā They made him a beautiful one with his OM logo.ā
The purple one-off is a 1993Plus model and sports a 1 3/4" wide neckā1/8" wider than a normal Rickenbacker. Van Zandt loved it so much that he had Babiuk wrestle with Rickenbacker again to build another one in baby blue. Petillo has since outfitted them with paisley-festooned custom pickguards. When guitar tech Newberry shows me these unique axes backstage, I can see the input jack on the purple guitar is labeled with serial number 01001.āSome of my drive is based on gratitude,ā says Van Zandt, āfeeling like we are the luckiest guys in the luckiest generation ever.ā
Photo by Rob DeMartin
Van Zandt also currently plays a white Vox Teardrop. That guitar is a prototype owned by Babiuk. āStevie wanted a Teardrop,ā Babiuk tells me, ābut I explained that the vintage ones are hit and missāthe ones made in the U.K. were often better than the ones manufactured in Italy. Korg now owns Vox, and I have a new Teardrop prototype from them in my personal collection. When I showed it to him, he loved it and asked me to get him one. I had to tell him, āI canāt; itās a prototype, thereās only one,ā and he asked me to sell him mine,ā he chuckles. āI told him, āItās my fucking personal guitar, itās not for sale!ā So I ended up lending it to him for this tour, and I told him, āRemember, this is my guitar; donāt get too happy with it, okay?ā
āHe asked me why that particular guitar sounds and feels so good. Besides being a prototype built by only one guy, the single-coil pickupsā output is abnormally hot, and the neck feels like a nice ā60s Fender neck. Stevieās obviously a dear friend of mine, and he can hold onto it for as long as he wants. Iām glad itās getting played. It was just hanging in my office.ā
Van Zandt tells me how Babiukās Vox Teardrop sums up everything he wants from his tone, and says, āItās got a wonderfully clean, powerful sound. Like Brian Jones got on āThe Last Time.ā Thatās my whole thing; thatās the trickātrying to get the power without too much distortion. Bruce and Nils get plenty of distortion; I am trying to be the clean rhythm guitar all the time.ā
If Van Zandt has a consigliere like Tony Soprano had Silvio Dante, thatās Newberry. Newberry has techād nearly every gig with Van Zandt since 1982. āBruce shows move fast,ā he tells me. āSo when thereās a guitar change for Stevie, and there are many of them, Iām at the top of the stairs, and we switch quickly. Thereās maybe one or two seconds, and if he needs to tell me something, I hear it. Heās Bruceās musical director, so he may say something like, āRemind me tomorrow to go over the background vocals on āGhosts,āā or something like that. And I take notes during the show.ā
āEverybody had a different guitar; your guitar was your identity. At some point, a couple of years later, I remember Bruce calling me and asking me for my permission to switch to a Telecaster.ā āStevie Van Zandt
When I ask Newberry how he defines Van Zandtās relationship to the guitar, he doesnāt hesitate, snapping back, āItās all in his head. His playing is encyclopedic, whether itās Bruce or anything else. He may show up at soundcheck and start playing the Byrds, but itās not āTambourine Man,ā itās something obscure like āBells of Rhymney.ā People may not get it, but Iāve known him long enough to know whatās happening. Heās got everything already under his fingers. Everything.ā
As such, Van Zandt says he never practices. āThe only time I touch a guitar between tours is if Iām writing something or maybe arranging backing vocal harmonies on a production,ā he tells me.
Before we say goodbye, I tell Van Zandt about my time stuck in his elevator, and his broad grin signals that I may not be the only one to have suffered that particular purgatory. When I ask him about the 1957 Stratocaster I got to play upon my release, he recalls: āBruce Springsteen gave me that guitar. Iāve only ever had one guitar stolen in my life, and it was in the very early days of my joining the E Street Band. I only joined temporarily for what I thought would be about seven gigs, and in those two weeks or so, my Stratocaster was stolen. It was a 1957 or 1958. Bruce felt bad about that and replaced that lost guitar with this one. So Iāve had it a long, long time. Once that first one was stolen, I decided I would resist having a personal relationship with any one guitar. But that one being a gift from Bruce makes it special. I will never take it back on the road.ā
After 50 years of rock ānā roll, if there is one word to sum up Stevie Van Zandt, it may be ārestlessāāan adjective you sense from reading his autobiography. He gets serious and tells me, āIām always trying to catch up. The beginning of accomplishing something came quite late to me. I feel like I havenāt done nearly enough. What are we on this planet trying to do?ā he asks rhetorically. āWeāre trying to realize our potential and maybe leave this place one percent better for the next guy. And some of my drive is based on gratitude, feeling like we are the luckiest guys in the luckiest generation ever. Thatās what Iām doing: I want to give something back. I feel an obligation.ā
YouTube It
āRosalitaā is a perennial E Street Band showstopper. Hereās a close-up video from Philadelphiaās Citizens Bank Park last summer. Van Zandtās brief but commanding guitar spotlight shines just past the 4:30 mark.
Follow along as we build a one-of-a-kind Strat featuring top-notch components, modern upgrades, and classic vibes. Plus, see how a vintage neck stacks up against a modern one in our tone test. Watch the demo and enter for your chance to win this custom guitar!
With over 350 effects models, 120 sampling slots, and a Groove Station with a 480-second looper, this pedal offers unparalleled versatility for guitarists worldwide.
In 2025, MOOER has announced that it will be set to release its latest multi-effects pedal, the GS1000 Intelligent Amp Profiling Processor, an augmented intelligent amp profiling processor. Built on MOOERās advanced third-generation digital platform, the GS1000 introduces groundbreaking MNRS 2.0 technology, allowing guitarists around the world to emulate their favorite gear with immense precisionāspecifically, for distortion pedals, preamps, amplifier heads, and cabinets.
With this innovation, guitarists can fully capture the essence of their favorite guitar gear without owning the physical hardware, enabling them to carry their favorite tones wherever they go. Users are even able to use third-party IRs for cabinets of their choice, further enhancing the flexibility of this feature.
Itās unforgettable how much MOOERās multi-effects pedals have impressed audiences so far, primarily thanks to their robust tone libraries. However, even still, the GS1000 continues to build upon this with storage for up to 120 sampling profiles, along with continued integration with the MOOER Cloud app. Essentially, this cloud integration facilitates infinite upload and download possibilities, giving users access to a global community of shared tones, widely expanding the number of accessible tones. More still, the GS1000ās previously mentioned third-party IR cabinet simulations support up to 2048 sample points, guaranteeing studio-grade tonal accuracy across the board.
Even more impressive for the price is how the GS1000 inherits the dual-chain effects architecture that made previous MOOER gear so versatile, making it suitable for highly complex usage scenarios. With over 350 factory effects models and a Sub-Patch preset grouping mode, the GS1000 makes it far simpler for users to make seamless transitions between tones, all while maintaining effect tails to guarantee seamless transitions. Additionally, the reintroduction of the innovative AI-driven EQ Master builds upon MOOER devicesā previous capabilities, using intelligent adjustments in real-time to match the musical style of players to tones, while still allowing manual tweaks for precise control.
Impressively, the GS1000 also comes packed with a Groove Station module, consisting of a combination of drum machine and looper featuresāincluding 56 high-quality drum kits! It offers a 480-second phrase looper with infinite overdubs, automated detection, and synchronization capabilities, resulting in an intuitive platform for solo jamming, composition, and live loop-based performance. Overall, the Groove Station acts as an all-in-one suite for creating full arrangements, without having to depend on additional backing tracks or bandmates.
Visually and functionally, the GS1000 really stands out thanks to its sleek visual design and enhanced user experience. For example, it features a convenient 5-inch high-resolution touchscreen, which is also paired with ambient lighting to add a visually stunning element to the pedal. As a result, the GS1000 is not only designed for convenient touch-based control but also as a standout centerpiece in any guitar rig.
In addition to this touchscreen control system, the GS1000 also provides expanded connectivity options, improving upon the already impressive flexibility of past pedals. Most notably, it supports connectivity with the MOOER F4 wireless footswitch, as well as the ability to control presets via external MIDI devices.
As is expected from MOOER these days, the GS1000 also excels when it comes to routing opportunities, going above and beyond the typical stereo Ā¼ā inputs and outputs that would be expected from other brands. Yes, it still includes such staples, but it also includes an XLRmicrophone input, alongside balanced TRS outputs for long-distance signal clarity. The configurable serial/parallel stereo effects loop enables seamless integration of external effects, and the addition of Bluetooth audio input and MIDI compatibility broadens its wide range of use cases for live and practice-based applications.
Furthermore, the pedal also serves as a professional audio solution thanks to its low-latency 2-in/2-out ASIO USB sound card. Supporting up to 192kHz sampling rates, the GS1000 makes recording and live streaming effortless, as it can easily be used with software DAWs, MOOERās editing software, as well as the USB-based MIDI control.
The GS1000 will be available in two versionsāthe standard white edition, which is powered by mains power, and the GS1000 Li version, which introduces a 7.4V 4750mAh lithium battery, chargeable through its power port. With this upgrade, users can enjoy up to six hours of continuous power-free playtime, making it ideal for practicing, busking, and generally performing on the go.
Overall, for fans of MOOERās previous amp simulation offerings, the GS1000 represents a natural evolution, building on everything that made its predecessors great while introducing cutting-edge features and expanded capabilities. Most importantly, MOOER has promised to continuously update its MOOER 4.0 tonal algorithms on the MOOER Cloud in line with therelease, keeping things fresh for the companyās dedicated user base.
- MNRS 2.0 sampling technology for emulating distortion pedals, preamps, amplifier heads, and cabinets
- Over 350 original factory effects models
- 120 sampling slots with upload/download support via the MOOER Cloud app
- Supports third-party cabinet IR files up to 2048 sample points
- Integrated Groove Station with a drum machine and 480-second looper, featuring infinite overdubs and synchronization capabilities
- 54 high-quality drum kits
- 4 metronome tones
- Tap-tempo control for timing effects
- Advanced AI-driven EQ Master for intelligent tone adjustment based on music styles, with manual customization options
- Built-in high-precision digital tuner
- Quick-access dual-chain effects architecture for seamless creative workflows
- 5-inch high-resolution touchscreen with ambient lighting for enhanced usability
- Four multi-purpose footswitches
- Configurable serial/parallel TRS stereo effects loop for external effects integration
- 6.35mm instrument input and XLR microphone input for expanded connectivity
- Balanced TRS stereo outputs for long-distance signal transmission without quality loss
- Bluetooth audio input functionality for accompaniment playback
- Low-latency ASIO 2-in/2-out USB sound card supporting up to 192kHz sampling rate
- MIDI controller compatibility for managing presets and features
- USB-C port for preset management, USB audio, and USB MIDI functionality
- Supports MOOER F4 wireless footswitch for extended control
- Also available as the GS1000 Li, which features a built-in 7.4V 4750mAh lithium battery, offering up to 6 hours of continuous playtime, chargeable through the power port
The GS1000 will be available from the official distributors and retailers worldwide on January 16th, 2025.
For more information, please visit mooeraudio.com.
Hand-crafted in Petaluma, California, this amp features upgrades while maintaining the original's legendary tone.
The Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo Headās arrival in 1992 was a watershed moment for alternative rock and metal that changed everything; heavy music would never sound the same again, and the Dual Rectifierās crushing, harmonically rich tone became the most sought-after guitar sound of the era. With a feel as empowering as its sound, the Rectifiers provided an ease of playing that supported and elevated proficiency and was inspirational, rewarding, and addictive.
Its sound and impact on the generation that used it to define what rock music would become were as sweeping as they have been lasting. And it remains arguably the most modeled in todayās digital amp landscape. Now, the 90s Dual Rectifier is back with a vengeance, built in Petaluma, California, by the same artisans who made the originals the most desirable high-gain guitar amplifier of all time.
For more information, please visit mesaboogie.com.