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Rig Rundown: The Devon Allman Project with Duane Betts

We catch up with the sons of Southern-rock royalty—and their trove of storied guitars—just before the official launch of their new Allman Betts Band project.

This Johnny Cash model Martin D-35—finished, of course, in black—was Devon’s dads’ No. 1 acoustic. If you saw Gregg Allman play “Melissa” and “Midnight Rider” during the last decade of his life, you’ve seen this guitar before.

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Fabulous neck with just-right fatness. Distinctive tone profile. Smooth, stable vibrato. Ice blue metallic and aluminum look delish together.

Higher output pickups could turn off Fender-geared traditionalists.

$939

Eastman FullerTone DC’62

eastmanguitars.com

4
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4

An affordable version of Eastman’s U.S.-made solidbody rolls with unique, well-executed features—at a price and quality level that rivals very tough competition.

Eastman’s instruments regularly impress in terms ofquality and performance. A few left my PG colleagues downright smitten. But if Eastman isn’t a household name among guitarists, it might be a case of consumer psychology: Relative to most instruments built in China, Eastmans are expensive. So, if you spend your life longing for a Gibson 335 and a comparable (if superficially fancier) Eastman costs just 20 percent less than the least expensive version of the real deal, why not save up for a bit longer and get the guitar of your dreams?

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The Tone King Imperial Preamp Pedal delivers legendary vintage American tube tone with modern control. Featuring two channels mirroring '50s tweed and '60s blackface tones, built-in zero watt poweramp, stereo convolution spring reverb and tremolo, and low-latency impulse response technology. MIDI programmable with up to 128 presets for instant recall.

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With a bit of downtime back in Nashville, co-shredders-in-chief Megan and Rebecca Lovell joined Shred With Shifty to deconstruct their face-melting leads on “Summertime Sunset,” off of their 2022 record Blood Harmony.

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An ’80s legend returns in a modern stompbox that lives up to the hype.

A well-designed recreation of one of the most classic tone tools of the ’80s. Sounds exactly like the tones you know from the original. Looks very cool.

If you don’t like ’80s sounds, this isn’t for you.

$229

MXR Rockman X100

jimdunlop.com

5
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Was Tom Scholz’s Rockman the high-water mark of guitar-tone convenience? The very fact that this headphone amp, intended primarily as a consumer-grade practice tool, ended up on some of the biggest rock records of the ’80s definitely makes a case. And much like Sony’s Walkman revolutionized the personal listening experience, it’s easy to argue the Rockman line of headphone amps did the same for guitarists.

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