
PRS Guitars launches the CE 22 Limited Edition, featuring a 22-fret, 25” scale length, mahogany body, maple top, and vintage-inspired 58/15 LT pickups. With only 1,000 made, this model offers classic PRS aesthetics and a blend of warmth and bolt-on articulation for vintage-inspired tone and modern versatility.
PRS Guitars today announced the launch of the CE 22 Limited Edition. Only 1,000 will be made, marking the brief return of a 22-fret version of this bolt-on mainstay. The 22-fret, 25” scale length CE 22 Limited Edition combines a mahogany body and maple top with a bolt-on maple neck. The guitar is outfitted with PRS’s vintage-inspired 58/15 LT pickups, push/pull tone control, three-way toggle switch, and PRS locking tuners with wing buttons.
“This limited-edition, 22-fret model in our CE line offers classic PRS aesthetics and a voice that blends warmth with bolt-on articulation for vintage-inspired tone and modern versatility,” said PRS Guitars Director of Manufacturing, Paul Miles.
The original CE, with 24 frets, first appeared in stores in 1988 and offered players PRS design and quality with the added snap and response of traditional bolt-on guitars. It wasn’t until 1994 that a 22-fret version debuted, just a few months after the release of the Custom 22. Last in stores in 2008, this refreshed CE 22 Limited Edition marks the model’s return to the market.
With a unique combination of specs, the CE 22 Limited Edition is a different animal from the CE 24. These differences include the model of pickups, placement of pickups, and, of course, the number of frets. That is all while retaining the CE family’s combination of maple and mahogany, nitro finish, PRS Patented Tremolo and Phase III Locking Tuners.
The limited-edition model comes in Black Amber, Carroll Blue, Faded Blue Smokeburst, Faded Gray Black and McCarty Sunburst.
For more information, please visit prsguitars.com.
CE 22 Limited Edition | Demo | PRS Guitars - YouTube
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Very diverse slate of tones. Capable of great focus and power. Potentially killer studio tool.
Sculpting tones in a reliably reproducible way can be challenging. Midrange emphasis may be a deal breaker for some.
$199 street
Bold-voiced, super-tunable distortion that excels in contexts from filtered boost to total belligerence.
Whitman Audio calls the Wave Collapse a fuzz—and what a very cool fuzz it is. But classifying it strictly as such undersells the breadth of its sounds. The Seattle, Washington-built Wave Collapse has personality at low gain levels and super crunchy ones. It’s responsive and sensitive enough to input and touch dynamics to move from light overdrive to low-gain distortion and degenerate fuzz with a change in picking intensity or guitar volume. And from the pedal’s own very interactive controls, one can summon big, ringing, near-clean tones, desert sludge, or snorkel-y wah buzz.
The Wave Collapse speaks many languages, but it has an accent—usually an almost wah-like midrange lilt that shows up as faint or super-pronounced. It’s not everyone’s creamy distortion ideal. But with the right guitar pairings and a dynamic approach, the Wave Collapse’s midrange foundation can still span sparkly and savage extremes that stand tall and distinctive in a mix. There’s much that sounds and feels familiar in the Wave Collapse, but the many surprises it keeps in store are the real fun.
Heavy Surf, Changing Waves
The absence of a single fundamental influence makes it tricky to get your bearings with the Wave Collapse at first. Depending on where you park the controls to start, you might hear traces of RAT in the midrange-forward, growly distortion, or the Boss SD-1 in many heavy overdrive settings. At its fuzziest, it howls and spits like aFuzz Face orTone Bender and can generate compressed, super-focused, direct-to-desk rasp. And in its darker corners, weighty doom tones abound.
The many personalities are intentional. Whitman Dewey-Smith’s design brief was, in his own words, “a wide palette ranging from dirty boost to almost square-wave fuzz and textures that could be smooth or sputtery.” A parallel goal, he says, was to encourage tone discoveries in less-obvious spaces. Many such gems live in the complex interrelationships between the EQ, filter, and bias controls. They also live in the circuit mash-up at the heart of the Wave Collapse. The two most prominent fixtures on the circuit are the BC108 transistor (best known as a go-to in Fuzz Face builds) and twin red LED clipping diodes (associated, in the minds of many, with clipping in the Turbo RAT and Marshall Jubilee amplifier). That’s not exactly a classic combination of amplifier and clipping section components, but it’s a big part of the Wave Collapse’s sonic identity.
The BC108 drives one of two core gain stages in the Wave Collapse. The first stage takes inspiration from early, simple fuzz topologies like the Tone Bender and Fuzz Face, but with a focus on what Dewey-Smith calls “exploiting the odd edges and interactivity in a two-transistor gain stage.” The BC108 contributes significant character to this stage. The second, post-EQ gain stage is JFET-based. It’s set up to interact like a tube guitar amp input stage and is followed by the clipping LEDs. Dewey-Smith says you can think of the whole as a “fairly” symmetric hard-clipping scheme.
“The magic of the circuit is that those gain stages are very complimentary. When stage one is running clean, it still passes a large, unclipped signal that hits the second stage, making those classic early distortion sounds. Conversely, when the first stage is running hot, it clips hard and the second stage takes a back seat—mostly smoothing out the rough edges of the first stage.” Factor in the modified Jack Orman pickup simulator-style section in the front end, and you start to understand the pedal’s propensity for surprise and expressive latitude.
Searchin’ Safari
The Wave Collapse’s many identities aren’t always easy to wrangle at the granular-detail level. The control set—knobs for bias, filter color, input level, and output level, plus switches for “mass” (gain,) “range”(bass content at the input), and “center” (shifts the filter’s mid emphasis from flat)—are interdependent in such a way that small adjustments can shift a tone’s character significantly, and it can be challenging to find your way back to a tone that sounded just right five minutes ago. Practice goes a long way toward mastering these sensitivities. One path to reliably reproducible sounds is to establish a ballpark tone focus with the filter first, dial in the input gain to an appropriately energetic zone, then shape the distortion color and response more specifically with the bias.
As you get a feel for these interactions, you’ll be knocked out by the sounds and ideas you bump into along the way. In addition to obvious vintage fuzz and distortion touchstones I crafted evocations of blistering, compressed tweed amps, jangly Marshalls, and many shades of recording console preamp overdrive. The Wave Collapse responds in cool ways to just about any instrument you situate out front. But while your results may vary, I preferred the greater headroom and detail that comes with single-coil pickup pairings. Humbuckers, predictably conjure a more compressed and, to my ears, less varied set of sounds. I also found black-panel Fender amps a more adaptable pairing than Vox- and Marshall-style voices. But just about any guitar or pickup type can yield magnificent results.
The Verdict
Though it’s hard to avoid its filtered midrange signature entirely, the Wave Collapse is a pedal of many masks. Once you master the twitchy interactivity between its controls, you can tailor the pedal to weave innocuously but energetically into a mix or completely dominate it. These capabilities are invaluable in ensemble performances, but it’s super enticing to consider how the Wave Collapse would work in a studio situation, where its focus and potency can fill gaps and nooks in color and vitality or turn a tune on its head. Pedals that stimulate the inner arranger, producer, and punk simultaneously are valuable tools. And while the Wave Collapse won’t suit every taste, when you factor together the pedal’s sub-$200 cost, thoughtful design, high-quality execution, and malleability, it adds up to a lot of utility for a very fair price.
PG contributor Tom Butwin demos seven direct boxes — active and passive — showing off sound samples, features, and real-world advice. Options from Radial, Telefunken, Hosa, Grace Design, and Palmer offer solutions for any input, setting, and budget.
Grace Design m303 Active Truly Isolated Direct Box
The Grace Design m303 is an active, fully isolated DI box, delivering gorgeous audio performance for the stage and studio. Our advanced power supply design provides unbeatable headroom and dynamic range, while the premium Lundahl transformer delivers amazing low-end clarity and high frequency detail. True elegance, built to last.
Rupert Neve Designs RNDI-M Active Transformer Direct Interface
Compact design, giant tone. The RNDI-M brings the stunning tone & clarity of its award-winning counterparts to an even more compact and pedalboard-friendly format, with the exact same custom Rupert Neve Designs transformers and discrete FET input stage as the best-selling RNDI, RNDI-S and RNDI-8.
Telefunken TDA-1 1-channel Active Instrument Direct Box
The TDA-1 phantom powered direct box uses high-quality components and classic circuitry for rich, natural sound. With discrete Class-A FET, a European-made transformer, and a rugged metal enclosure, it delivers low distortion and a broad frequency response. Assembled and tested in Connecticut, USA, for reliable performance and superior sound.
Hosa SideKick Active Direct Box
The Hosa SideKick DIB-445 Active DI delivers clear, strong signals for live and studio use. Ideal for guitars, basses, and keyboards, it minimizes interference over long runs. Features include a pad switch, ground lift, and polarity flip. With a flat frequency response and low noise, it ensures pristine audio.
Radial JDI Jensen-equipped 1-channel Passive Instrument Direct Box
The Radial JDI preserves your instrument’s natural tone with absolute clarity and zero distortion. Its Jensen transformer delivers warm, vintage sound, while its passive design eliminates hum and buzz. With a ruler-flat response (10Hz–40kHz) and no phase shift, the JDI ensures pristine sound in any setup.
Radial J48 1-channel Active 48v Direct Box
The Radial J48 delivers exceptional clarity and dynamic range, making it the go-to active DI for professionals. Its 48V phantom-powered design ensures clean, powerful signal handling without distortion. With high headroom, low noise, and innovative power optimization, the J48 captures your instrument’s true tone—perfect for studio and stage.
Palmer River Series - Ilm
The Palmer ilm, an upgraded version of the legendary Palmer The Junction, delivers studio-quality, consistent guitar tones anywhere. This passive DI box features three analog speaker simulations, ensuring authentic sound reproduction. Its advanced filter switching mimics real guitar speaker behavior, making it perfect for stage, home, or studio recording sessions.
Learn more from these brands!
Billy Strings' signature dreads are distinguished by a 25" scale and wider nut width.
In a career defined by evolution, Joe Bonamassa is ready to turn the page once again. The blues-rock virtuoso has just announced Breakthrough, his most adventurous and genre-blending studio album to date, out July 18th via his own J&R Adventures.
At the heart of the announcement is the release of the album’s powerful title track—“Breakthrough' —a soulful, hard-hitting anthem about letting go, moving forward, and finding your fire again, available today on all streaming platforms.
Crafted across multiple continents and infused with a world’s worth of inspiration, Breakthrough marks a bold new chapter for Bonamassa—one that leans on fiery solos, emotionally rich storytelling, groove-driven arrangements, and stylistic exploration. Produced by longtime creative partner Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, The Black Crowes, Journey), the album was shaped by sessions in Greece, Egypt, Nashville, and Los Angeles, resulting in a vibrant sonic tapestry that shifts effortlessly from funky blues and Texas swing to acoustic ballads and swaggering hard rock.
Joe Bonamassa “Breakthrough” - Official Lyric Video
Watch the official lyric video for "Breakthrough" by Joe Bonamassa
“I think this album, Breakthrough, marks a shift in the styling of Joe Bonamassa’s recording output,” says Shirley. “While there are plenty of guitar solos on this record, his emphasis has been on songs primarily. Each time Joe undertakes a new recording project, he seems to access a different part of his vast library of music genre from the jukebox-in-his-head! This album is a round-the-world musical trip—from Little Feat funkiness to Texas swing, from hard rock power to acoustic singer/songwriter-style songs.”
The newly released single “Breakthrough,” co-written with longtime collaborator Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd), captures the emotional core of the record—an uplifting anthem about transformation, persistence, and letting go of the weight that holds us back. With gritty vocals, melodic guitar lines, and lush instrumentation, the track embodies Bonamassa’s signature blend of power and finesse while ushering in a bold new direction.
“Breakthrough” follows the success of Bonamassa’s recent singles “Still Walking With Me” and “Shake This Ground,” both of which hinted at the adventurous spirit behind the full album. “Shake This Ground” delivered a moody, introspective edge, while “Still Walking With Me” leaned into warmth, gratitude, and classic soul. Each track reflects a different facet of Bonamassa’s evolving songwriting approach, rooted in emotional honesty and anchored by his unmistakable guitar work.
The album announcement caps a stretch of extraordinary momentum for Bonamassa. Next up, Bonamassa recently began his extensive *European Spring Tour, followed by a June run with his powerhouse supergroup Black Country Communion* (featuring Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham, and Derek Sherinian). After another round of summer dates across Europe—including sold-out shows in Ireland—he’ll return stateside for his just-announced* 2025 U.S. Summer Tour*, a limited amphitheater run featuring stops at The Greek Theatre, Red Rocks, and more iconic venues.
With over 50 albums, 28 #1 Billboard Blues albums, and a lifelong commitment to evolving the genre, Bonamassa shows no signs of slowing down. Whether headlining iconic venues, mentoring rising artists through Journeyman Records, or supporting music education via his Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation, Bonamassa continues to shape the future of blues-rock with every note.
For more information on Breakthrough, tour dates, and VIP packages, visit jbonamassa.com.