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Rig Rundown: Brad Whitford and Derek St. Holmes

Classic rockers from Aerosmith and Ted Nugent reconnect after three decades to jam on vintage-inspired gear with modern accoutrements.

It pays to know talented people as St. Holmes uses another guitar a friend built him—this one is an EKlein Guitars Custom Shop DSH model that is loaded with Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB humbuckers.

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Tone Tweaks Made Easy: Beginner's Guide to Tubes
- YouTube

Want to know how tubes shape your tone? Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he breaks down preamp vs. power tubes, tone tweaks, and biasing, in this ultimate beginner's guide to tube amps. From Fender cleans to Marshall grit, learn how to unlock the full potential of your amp!

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Guitarist Brandon Seabrook, architect of fretboard chaos, and his trusty HMT Tele.

Photo by Reuben Radding

With a modified and well-worn heavy metal Tele, a Jerry Jones 12-string, a couple banjos, some tape sounds, and a mountain of fast-picking chops, New York’s master of guitar mayhem delivers Object of Unknown Function.

“It’s like time travel,” says Brandon Seabrook, reflecting on the sonic whiplash of “Object of Unknown Function.” The piece, which opens the composer’s solo album of the same name, journeys jarringly from aggressive “early banjo stuff” up through “more 21st-century classical music,” combined with electronic found sounds from a TASCAM 4-track cassette recorder. The end result approaches the disorientation of musique concréte.

“The structure is kind of like hopping centuries or epochs,” he adds. “I [wanted] all these different worlds to collide. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure.”

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The Fearless Flyers' Cory Wong & Mark Lettieri Rig Rundown
- YouTube

Cory Wong and his Flyers comrade Mark Lettieri do a little show-and-tell at their summer camp.


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The Hummingbird Studio EC features a mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top, a Round SlimTaper profile mahogany neck, and L.R. Baggs electronics.

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