Inspiration can arise from the most lifeless and prosaic sources. Just ask luthier Doug Kauer who accredits his “Ah-ha!” moment to a single solid piece of maple. “I grew up in the family’s woodworking business and one day a piece of maple came in the shop,” remembers Kauer. “I just mentioned something in passing to my girlfriend—now wife—that ‘I should build a guitar from this.’” A few months later Kauer’s birthday came around and she bought him some pickups, tuners, and some other parts so he could properly jump-start his DIY-luthier career. Seven years have passed and he’s constructed over 130 guitars under the Kauer name, and 54 guitars in 2010 alone. But that first piece of maple still hasn’t been built into a guitar.
While most builders are grabbing the last batches of endangered species of mahogany and rosewood, Kauer generally goes with Spanish cedar—aka South American mahogany—and ambrosia maple. “Spanish cedar is an amazing, warm, clear sounding mahogany that is also very light weight and ambrosia maple is just as fantastic sounding as Eastern maple,” says Kauer. “I’d rather put all my efforts into making the most of what I think is the best-sounding, most-reliable tonewoods available to build something I know will sound good and I won’t run out of… and to be honest, I’m tired of seeing 10-top after 10-top [laughs]. What I truly enjoy about the Spanish cedar and ambrosia maple is they create a familiar sounding guitar that still produces its own voice and character.”
In addition, Kauer’s goal from the very beginning was to build a clear, articulate guitar with lots of dynamic range at a comfortable, balanced weight. “I took the positives from guitars I enjoyed playing and threw out the flaws that frustrated me as a player,” says Kauer. All of Kauer’s standard Daylighters are an offspring that is one-third-Jazzmaster—body style—one-third Les Paul—scale length, radius and humbuckers—and one-third Firebird—playing position and neck access.
Most of Kauer Guitars’ Daylighters— Express, Standard, Semi-Hollow, and Hollow—share a similar thumbprint: a Spanish cedar body with an ambrosia maple cap, 24 3/4" scale Spanish cedar neck with a wenge fretboard, WolfeTone pickups, and TonePros hardware. “The biggest requirement I have for the entire package is a clear, articulate guitar with lots of dynamic range and a comfortable weight [8 lbs or less],” says Kauer. “I really strive to build a consistent, well-built, excellent playing guitar that I could play three hours a night, every night without a struggle… [laughs] what’s the point if it can’t do that?”
Daylighter Express
The Express is the stripped-down, no-frills workhorse of the Daylighter family. It features a pau ferro fretboard and wenge binding. Kauer explains its tone as being “warm expressive tone that compliments the WolfeTone P-90s—Mean (neck) and Meaner (bridge)—cranked-up rock tones.”
Daylighter Standard
The Standard is currently Kauer’s only solidbody model. It’s loaded with WolfeTone Kauer-wind PAF-style humbuckers. Kauer explains it as having a “thick, full tone with loads of sustain and surprising snap thanks to the wenge fretboard.”
Daylighter Semi-Hollow
Anointed the Swiss Army Knife of the Daylighter models, this Semi-Hollow is loaded with three Klein Pickups Firebird Minis giving the guitar a sweet and fat low end, with well-defined mids, and single-coil-like clarity.
Argonaut
After being unveiled at the LA Amp Show as a prototype—tentatively named the Double Hollow—the Argonaut won the hearts and fingers of enough players for Kauer to put this model into production. It features a carved Eastern maple back and a 4" Spanish cedar core block which is attached to the Spanish cedar top giving the guitar 60–70 percent more internal volume. Initially, Kauer was disappointed because he was hoping the guitar would be somewhat ES-175-ish, but he was happy to discover the guitar is very much like an ES-335.
Pricing and Availability
Kauer’s handbuilt guitars start with the Daylighter Express at $2500. The STD starts at $3450, the Semi-Hollow models enter at $3900 while the just released Double Hollow begins at $5500. And because Kauer Guitars is a one-man shop—with occasional help from family members—Doug has an open-door policy on tweaking and tinkering. “You name I’ll try it,” says Kauer. “Color choices, pickup options and configurations, neck profiles, and wood packages are all configurable on the Daylighter models.” Currently, Kauer Guitars’ current wait time is 3–4 months.
kauerguitars.com
Guitarists are used to coveting cranky, old gear, but if you’re not a rack user, the H3000 might not be for you! If you ever see one of these in a studio, be sure to take some time to check it out, and maybe give the plugin a try.When it debuted in 1987, the H3000 was marketed as an “intelligent pitch-changer” that could generate stereo harmonies in a user-specified key. This was heady stuff in the ’80s! But while diatonic harmonizing grabbed the headlines, subtler uses of this pitch-shifter cemented its legacy. Patch 231 MICROPITCHSHIFT, for example, is a big reason the H3000 persists in racks everywhere. It’s essentially a pair of very short, single-repeat delays: The left side is pitched slightly up while the right side is pitched slightly down (default is ±9 cents). The resulting tripling/thickening effect has long been a mix-engineer staple for pop vocals, and it’s also my first call when I want a stereo chorus for guitar.
The second-gen H3000S, introduced the following year, cemented the device’s guitar bona fides. Early-adopter Steve Vai was such a proponent of the first edition that Eventide asked him to contribute 48 signature sounds for the new model (patches 700-747). Still-later revisions like the H3000B and H3000D/SE added even more functionality, but these days it’s not too important which model you have. Comprehensive EPROM chips containing every patch from all generations of H3000 (plus the later H3500) are readily available for a modest cost, and are a fairly straightforward install.
In addition to pitch-shifting, there are excellent modulation effects and reverbs (like patch 211 CANYON), plus presets inspired by other classic Eventide boxes, like the patch 513 INSTANT PHASER. A comprehensive accounting of the H3000’s capabilities would be tedious, but suffice to say that even the stock presets get deliciously far afield. There are pitch-shifting reverbs that sound like fever-dream ancestors of Strymon’s “shimmer” effect. There are backwards-guitar simulators, multiple extraterrestrial voices, peculiar foreshadows of the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid and Rainbow Machine (check out patch 208 BIZARRMONIZER), and even button-triggered Foley effects that require no input signal (including a siren, helicopter, tank, submarine, ocean waves, thunder, and wind). If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute. (Spin the big wheel and find out what you’ve won!)
“If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute.”
But there’s another, more pedestrian reason I tend to reach for the H3000 and its rackmount relatives in the studio: I like to do certain types of processing after the mic. It’s easy to overlook, but guitar speakers are signal processors in their own right. They roll off high and low end, they distort when pushed, and the cabinets in which they’re mounted introduce resonances. While this type of de facto processing often flatters the guitar itself, it isn’t always advantageous for effects.
Effects loops allow time-based effects to be placed after preamp distortion, but I like to go one further. By miking the amp first and then sending signal to effects in parallel, I can get full bandwidth from the airy reverbs and radical pitched-up effects the H3000 can offer—and I can get it in stereo, printed to its own track, allowing the wet/dry balance to be revisited later, if needed. If a sound needs to be reproduced live, that’s a problem for later. (Something evocative enough can usually be extracted from a pedal-form descendant like the Eventide H90.)
Like most vintage gear, the H3000 has some endearing quirks. Even as it knowingly preserves glitches from earlier Eventide harmonizers (patch 217 DUAL H910s), it betrays its age with a few idiosyncrasies of its own. Extreme pitch-shifting exhibits a lot of aliasing (think: bit-crusher sounds), and the analog Murata filter modules impart a hint of warmth that many plug-in versions don’t quite capture. (They also have a habit of leaking black goo all over the motherboard!) It’s all part of the charm of the unit, beloved by its adherents. (Well, maybe not the leaking goo!)
In 2025, many guitarists won’t be eager to care for what is essentially an expensive, cranky, decades-old computer. Even the excitement of occasional tantalum capacitor explosions is unlikely to win them over! Fortunately, some great software emulations exist—Eventide’s own plugin even models the behavior of the Murata filters. But hardware offers the full hands-on experience, so next time you spot an old H3000 in a rack somewhere—and you’ve got the time—fire it up, wait for the distinctive “click” of its relays, spin the knob, and start digging.
PRS Guitars today released the updated MT 15 and the new Archon Classic amplifiers, along with a larger Archon speaker cabinet. The 15-watt, two-channel Mark Tremonti signature amp MT 15 now features a lead channel overdrive control. An addition to the Archon series, not a replacement, the 50-watt Classic offers a fresh voice by producing retro rock “classic” tones reminiscent of sound permeating the radio four and five decades ago. Now twice the size of the first Archon cabinet, the Archon 4x12 boasts four Celestion V-Type speakers.
MT 15 Amplifier Head
Balancing aggression and articulation, this 15-watt amp supplies both heavy rhythms and clear lead tones. The MT 15 revision builds off the design of the MT 100, bringing the voice of the 100’s overdrive channel into its smaller-format sibling. Updating the model, the lead channel also features a push/pull overdrive control that removes two gain stages to produce vintage, crunchier “mid gain” tones. The clean channel still features a push/pull boost control that adds a touch of overdrive crunch. A half-power switch takes the MT to 7 watts.
“Seven years ago, we released my signature MT 15 amplifier, a compact powerhouse that quickly became a go-to for players seeking both pristine cleans and crushing high-gain tones. In 2023, we took things even further with the MT 100, delivering a full-scale amplifier that carried my signature sound to the next level. That inspired us to find a way to fit the 100's third channel into the 15's lunchbox size,” said Mark Tremonti.
“Today, I’m beyond excited to introduce the next evolution of the MT15, now featuring a push/pull overdrive control on the Lead channel and a half-power switch, giving players even more tonal flexibility to shape their sound with a compact amp. Can’t wait for you all to plug in and experience it!”
Archon Classic Amplifier Head
With a refined gain structure from the original Archon, the Archon Classic’s lead channel offers a wider range of tones colored with gain, especially in the midrange. The clean channel goes from pristine all the way to the edge of breakup. This additional Archon version was developed to be a go-to tool for playing classic rock or pushing the envelope into modern territory. The Archon Classic still features the original’s bright switch, presence and depth controls. PRS continues to stock the Archon in retailers worldwide.
“The Archon Classic is not a re-issue of the original Archon, but a newly voiced circuit with the lead channel excelling in '70s and '80s rock tones and a hotter clean channel able to go into breakup. This is the answer for those wanting an Archon with a hotrod vintage lead channel gain structure without changing preamp tube types, and a juiced- up clean channel without having to use a boost pedal, all wrapped up in a retro-inspired cabinet design,” said PRS Amp Designer Doug Sewell.
Archon 4x12 Cabinet
As in the Archon 1x12 and 2x12, the mega-sized PRS Archon 4x12 speaker cabinet features Celestion V-Type speakers and a closed-back design, delivering power, punch, and tight low end. Also like its smaller brethren, the 4x12 is wrapped in durable black vinyl and adorned with a British-style black knitted-weave grill cloth. The Archon 4x12 is only the second four-speaker cabinet in the PRS lineup, next to the HDRX 4x12.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40 th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year. For all of the latest news, click www.prsguitars.com/40 and follow @prsguitars on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, X, and YouTube.
