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The Year in Gear 2015

Our favorite guitars, basses, amps, effects, and accessories from the last 12 months.

Moog MF Flange

Unless you’re some joyless guitar puritan, you’ve got to be thrilled about the love Moog gives guitarists. The synth pioneer always seems to add a little something extra to their guitar-oriented pedals, and that’s certainly the case with the BBD-driven MF Flange. The huge range of its depth and speed controls lets it move from sedate to deranged with ease. Extra feedback controls and the option of expression-pedal delay control compound the beautiful madness.
$209 street
moogmusic.com

Click here to read the full review

In the years we’ve compiled our annual list of Premier Gear Award winners, we’ve probably never seen a list more eclectic than 2015’s. From high-gain monster amps and atmospheric reverbs to mini overdrives and wahs, 2015’s award winners covered all the bases.

As always, it was a joy to see how both big-time musical instrument industry players and little shops a step removed from the garage managed to haul in Premier Guitar’s prize for gear excellence. And if anyone’s counting, we’re pretty sure we also set a record for Premier Gear Award winners. So we hope you’re comfy—this list of primo gear may take some time to cover.

A more compact Cortex puts a universe of sounds and tone creation potential at your feet, at a price that’s a fraction of bigger floor modelers.

Fast, easy capture process. Easy to navigate top-level functions. Captures can sound very accurate. Extensive online community creates a trove of downloadable models.

No onboard screen means you rely on a smartphone or tablet for deep navigation. Getting closest possible amp captures via miking can take a lot of trial and error.

$549

Neural DSP Nano Cortex
neuraldsp.com

4
4
4
4.5

The complexities and capabilities of modelers like Neural DSP’s Cortex series demand certain tradeoffs. For starters, a powerful modeler can’t be the size of a postage stamp, at least if you intend to adjust many parameters and source numerous presets in real time on a stage. Neural’s newNano Cortex pushes back at the boundaries of that compromise. It's not much wider than two MXR pedals side by side. The $549 price tag, which is just about a third of the price of the Nano’s more capable big brother,the Quad Cortex, makes it an appealing proposition too.

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Gallagher’s road worn Strat in play in the cover of his 1972 concert album.

How the Irish guitar virtuoso got a unique tone with a factory-stock Strat.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. In this column, we’ll take a closer look at the very unique sound of the famous Rory Gallagher Stratocaster and discuss why it sounded so outstandingly good.

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Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker’s challenging version of a 12-bar blues is one of his most enduring contributions. Learn how to navigate these tricky changes by combining bebop and blues.


Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Intermediate
Lesson Overview:
• Use IIm–V7 progressions to add interest to a blues progression.
• Combine the blues scale with Mixolydian and Dorian to create swinging phrases.
• Increase your rhythmic awareness by using triplets and syncopation.


Click here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.

A big part of the bebop spirit was learning how to navigate through seemingly unrelated chords at speedy tempos. Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker was a pioneer in the bebop movement and he combined his love of the burgeoning style with a deep appreciation for the blues. It’s easy to look at bebop in 2017 and think of it as a complicated and overly intellectual genre, but adding in a blues sensibility can make the changes a bit more approachable.

When looking at a traditional I–IV–V blues, there’s not all that much harmonic information to outline, so bop players like Parker would add chord substitutions. His composition “Blues for Alice” is an example of what’s become known as “Bird Blues.” The changes Parker used on this tune of become so accepted that other composers have written contrafacts—a different melody written on the same changes.

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Less-corpulent, Big Muff-style tones that cut in many colors.

Unique, less-bossy take on the Big Muff sound that trades excess fat for articulation. Nice build at a nice price.

Some Big Muff heads may miss the bass and silky smooth edges.

$149

Evil Eye FX Warg
evileyefx.com

4.5
4.5
4
4.5

Membership in the Cult of Big Muff is an endless source of good times. Archaeologically minded circuit-tracers can explore many versions and mutations. Tone obsessives can argue the merits of fizzier or fatter tone signatures. The Ace Tone FM-3 is one of the less famous branches on the Big Muff evolutionary tree, but one that every true Big Muff devotee should know. It came out around 1971 and it was among the first in a line of often-imaginative Japanese takes on the circuit.

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