EMG Pickups announces the release of new special edition finishes for each of the Metallica signature sets in celebration of its 50th anniversary. These finish options will only be available during 2026, making each of these sets limited edition collectors’ items that provide the performance EMG users expect.
In collaboration with James Hetfield, the JH “Het” Set is now available in a custom sandblasted stainless-steel cap. This set is known for its cutting attack and open headroom and is perfect for creating a vintage look while providing the articulate response expected from an active EMG pickup set.
Kirk Hammett brings a mystifying new look to his popular KH-BB “Bone Breaker” Set with the all-new spectrum finish. The KH-BB Set is based on the classic 81/60A setup that Kirk used for years, now with a multicolored metal cap that is sure to turn heads in any guitar.
By popular demand, Rob Trujillo’s signature RT “Rip Tide” Set will now be available with gold metal caps. When this set was initially released, it marked the release of the first jazz bass pickup in a metal cap, and now it is available in an impressive gold finish that will make a statement tonally and visually.
Celebrate 50 years of active EMG innovation with one of these limited-edition pickup sets.
MESA/Boogie is proud to introduce the 90s Triple Rectifier® Solo Head, the high-power sibling to the legendary Dual Rectifier® and one of the most influential amplifiers in modern guitar history. Since its original release in 1992, the Rectifier family has dominated—and in many ways reinvented—the sound of rock and heavy music, powering walls of crushing high gain for detuned crunch rhythms and bass lines that became the soundtrack for a generation. Now, more than three decades later, and on the heels of the 90s 2Channel Dual Rectifier’s return to production, MESA reintroduces the mightyTriple Rectifier: the model that’s always been perfect for when excess is barely enough. The MESA/Boogie 90s Triple Rectifier Solo Head is now available worldwide at authorized dealers and on MESA/Boogie.com.
Built in Petaluma, California, with the world’s finest materials, the 90s Triple Rectifier delivers the layered harmonics, tight low end, and percussive mid hit that defined the original 90s build—now in a solid new construction backed by MESA’s comprehensive five-year warranty.
This limited run is dressed in one of the most popular Custom Configured options: a blackout aesthetic. With a blackout chassis, black Speed knobs, and black Diamond Plate, this most powerful of Rectifiers looks as menacing as it sounds. Around back, a wall of glowing glass—created by the additional rectifier and power tubes—forewarns of the sonic impact about to be unleashed with a flick of the Standby switch, reaffirming the Triple Rectifier’s status as a bona fide rock icon built in the same tradition of craftsmanship that produced the first run of Triple Recs over 30 years ago.
“Following the excitement around last year’s Chrome edition of the ’90s Dual and Triple Rectifier Solo Heads, we wanted to honor one of the most iconic Custom Dress options in our history with a limited run of stealth-inspired ‘Blackout’ Triple Rectifiers,” says Doug West, Director of Tone Lab for Gibson Amplifiers and MESA/Boogie.
“These coveted heads feature the original black chassis, replacing the polished aluminum diamond plate and grille vent with black anodized versions, and swapping chrome speed knobs for sleek black ones. Back in the 90s, these upscale, blacked-out models dominated stages behind some of the biggest names in rock. Today, finding one on the pre-owned market usually means heavy wear from years of touring—so this is a rare chance to own one in pristine, brand-new condition.
Built in limited quantities, these amps are for players who dream of owning a true icon. The Triple Rectifier remains one of the most sonically and stylistically impactful amps we’ve ever created, and revisiting it in this beloved Custom Dress option is inspiring for us. It reflects our design, where instruments look as impressive as they sound and sound as impressive as they look. That’s exactly what these limited-run Triple Rectifiers deliver.”
At its core, the 90s Triple Rectifier is a 150-watt, Class A/B, all-tube head running 6x MESA 6L6 power tubes, with a maintenance-free fixed-bias design and a bias switch that supports alternate power tube types (6L6 or EL34). It features three 5U4GB rectifier tubes and selectable Tube or Silicon Diode rectification, alongside a two-position BOLD/SPONGY power switch to tailor feel and response. Cooling is handled by a fan, and the rear panel includes speaker outputs of 8 Ohm x2, 4 Ohm x2, and 16 Ohm x1, plus a Slave Output for expanded routing options.
Two fully independent channels deliver classic 2-channel Rectifier flexibility with Channel Style/Cloning voicing options and independent Gain, Treble, Middle, Bass, Presence, and Master controls on each channel. Channel 1 “Orange” (LED) offers Clean or Variable High Gain (“Vintage”) modes, and with the Channel Style/Cloning switch, can also be set to Modern High Gain (“Red”). Channel 2 “Red” (LED) offers Vintage High Gain mode, and with the Channel Style/Cloning switch, it can also be set to Variable “Vintage” High Gain (“Orange”). A tube-driven, series FX loop is on board, with a global output level control active when the loop is engaged, and external switching supports Channel and Loop control. Footswitching is handled by a compact, 1-button footswitch for Channel 1/2 switching.
The 90s Triple Rectifier is available in head format and measures 10” H x 25 ½” W x 9 7/8” D (25.4 cm H x 64.77 cm W x 24.77 cm D), weighing 48.6 lbs. (22.04 kg). The chassis is steel, and cabinet construction utilizes marine-grade Baltic birch, finished in Black Bronco vinyl with a black Diamond Plate grille, black chassis, black handle, and leather corners; a fitted slipcover is included for protection on the road.
Andy Hicks, with a 1960 Heavy Relic 3 Tone Burst Stratocaster HSS.
Andy Hicks’ path to becoming a guitar craftsman—from overachieving student to Fender Custom Shop Master Builder—can be traced back to age 11 or 12, when a friend introduced him to Nirvana’s In Utero. Hicks had grown up savoring his dad’s eclectic record collection—everything from the Beatles to jazz standards to Black Sabbath. But as he soaked in the noisy strains of songs like “Serve the Servants” and “Scentless Apprentice,” it felt like “something was unlocking” in his brain.
“It was a band my parents didn’t know about,” Hicks recalls. “It was this secret. It’s kind of edgy, so do I tell them about this?’ I remember being nervous: ‘The band is Nirvana, and here’s the album cover [which shows a transparent anatomical mannequin].’ My dad was like, ‘Let’s go buy every record of theirs.’ A couple weeks later, I’ve got the entire discography and t-shirts and everything. I was just so fascinated by Kurt Cobain as an artist, and I was the perfect age for that music to resonate with me.”
But this resonance went even deeper than most kids bewitched by the brooding “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video. In that clip, Hicks happened to notice Cobain was playing a Fender Mustang—not that he knew anything about his future employer as a pre-teen. “That video made me want to play guitar,” he says. “I was like, ‘That looks so cool.’ I knew he played a Fender, but I didn’t know any Fender models or anything. For my birthday, my parents took me to Guitar Center and I got my first: a made-in-Mexico three-tone sunburst Strat. I just fell in love with the guitar.”
In the decades since, Hicks—a former member of the doom-metal band Stygian Crown—has forgotten more about the instrument than most people ever learn. But in a way, his wealth of knowledge hasn’t really altered his perspective all that much, either as a builder or a musician: Instead of chasing trendy guitar gimmicks or seeking out some unattainably perfect tone, he’s just aiming for empowerment.
Four Hicks Fender creations (l-r): Ultimate Relic Aztec Gold ’64 Telecaster H/S; Limited Edition Master Built Dave Murray Stratocaster; 1960 Heavy Relic Silver Burst Sparkle Stratocaster HSS; 1961 Relic Olympic White over 3 Tone Burst Stratocaster
“My formative years were spent learning how to use my hands to make the sounds I wanted to make,” he says. “Years later, I look back at that as being such a blessing. As a builder, I’m not sucked into the misinformation pool about tone wood and all of these little minute changes to something that people think is gonna make this huge change in the instrument. It’s more, ‘Let me make the best-feeling instrument for you,’ because the tone is ultimately going to come from you. I can’t make you have the tone that you want. That’s freeing as a builder, and I think it’s freeing for the player, too.”
After getting his hands on that first Strat, he was obsessed. But not necessarily with gear. Back at home with his little 25-watt amp, he realized too late that he needed effects pedals to emulate his heroes: “I have this vision of going home and playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” he says. “‘Why doesn’t my guitar sound like that guitar?’” But even after experimenting with “a million” options, he learned a crucial lesson: “After having a distortion pedal, it was like, ‘I still don’t sound like Black Sabbath.’” He eventually found his own path, falling in love with heavy metal and taking any chance he could to practice.
“I wanted the guitar to be as involved in my life as it could possibly be forever,” he says. “In high school, the only guitar class they taught was Introduction to Guitar. I was beyond ‘introduction,’ but I explained to the teacher: ‘I’m just looking for a place where I can come play. If I don’t learn anything new, I’m gonna teach myself stuff. Can I take this class?’ I took it for a semester. When it was over, I said, ‘Can I sign up again?’ He was like, ‘Uh, I guess.’ I took it for two straight years, for four semesters.” That same devotion followed him into college, where he played in bands but also envisioned a life as a teacher and water polo coach. The itch, it turns out, was too strong to not eventually scratch.
“The tone is ultimately going to come from you. I can’t make you have the tone that you want.”
“My roommates would always say, ‘Why aren’t you a music major?’” he recalls. “I knew some music majors, and it sometimes seemed too clinical, the way they would talk about music. I didn’t know if that part of the guitar would give me joy. For a long time, it was, ‘I’ll have some other career, and the guitar will always be there for me to come home and decompress with.’”
He got the push he needed from his future wife. “I came home from work,” he says, “and she told me, ‘I don’t think you love what you’re doing. I think you love guitar. There’s a school in Hollywood [called the Musicians Institute].’ At this point, I was tinkering with guitars all the time. I wanted to make my guitars feel better, and I didn’t have the money to have somebody constantly adjust these things for me, swapping out pickups or whatever. When we came home [from touring the school], I was like, ‘I have to do this.’ I signed up and started there the next semester [in 2009].”
A closeup of the body and headstock of Hicks’ 1960 Heavy Relic Silver Burst Sparkle Stratocaster HSS.
He learned a lot in the Guitar Craft Academy program, focusing six months on the electric guitar and impressing one of the instructors, longtime Fender employee Dave Maddux. “He was the first person to say to me, ‘Judging by the builds you’ve done in school, I think you could make a good go at this,’” Hicks says. “He put me in contact with some people, and when I graduated, I had a job lined up at Jackson Custom Shop, where I shaped necks and did fretwork. That’s been a main focus my whole career: making the neck feel as good as possible.”
He bounced around a bit at Jackson, including a stint on the Fender production line. But these early days were anything but boring: He was only on the job for a few weeks, working on necks for the EVH Wolfgang, when he first met Eddie Van Halen, who was on site with master builders Chip Ellis (Fender) and Mike Shannon (Jackson).
“I wanted the guitar to be as involved in my life as it could possibly be forever.”
“It’s Fender—we have tours all the time,” Hicks says. “This guy comes over, leaning on me, and he looks like some dad wearing a baseball hat. Then I’m like, ‘Oh, Eddie Van Halen is just standing here watching us work.’ The guy I was working with was in the middle of complaining: ‘Man, these stainless steel frets. With just these Wolfgangs, we’ve gotta do 12 stainless steel necks today.’ Eddie [playfully] said something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry my guitar is such a pain in the butt.’ It was incredible.” (The story has a full-circle coda: Toward the end of Hicks’ run at Jackson, Van Halen held a friends-and-family show at the Forum, and the virtuoso gave +1s to everyone who worked on his guitars. “My dad was sitting next to Tom Morello, telling him that his son made Eddie Van Halen’s guitar,” he says with a laugh. “I had to say, ‘Dad, please stop talking to Tom Morello. And also, I didn’t make his guitar. Chip made his guitar. I make Wolfgang guitars.’ He was so excited to talk to somebody, and he just happened to be talking to Tom Morello.”)
After a couple years at Jackson, Hicks “got noticed a little bit” and made the jump over to the Gretsch Custom Shop, where he earned his stripes as a “guitar detective,” helping with a meticulous recreation of Malcolm Young’s “Salute” Jet. Gretsch initially thought they’d have access to the AC/DC icon’s original axe—but after both Young and his tech suffered health issues, they were left only with photos, dimensional specs, and a lot of question marks.
“There were a lot of things that had been done to it over the years,” Hicks recalls. “It had one pickup in it and three knobs. What do those do? No one could really tell us. During some of my digging, I contacted a guitar shop in Melbourne, Australia, that had it in there before a tour. They took photos of it just for fun, so they sent me a bunch of them. That’s how I learned about the weird tone caps that they had in it—they were like wah-pedal tone caps instead of normal tone caps. It was essentially two master volumes and a tone. That’s the fun stuff of doing an instrument like that.”
“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’m growing anymore.’ I didn’t like that feeling.”
Hicks grew super comfortable at Gretsch—almost too comfortable. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’m growing anymore,’” he says. “I didn’t like that feeling. I didn’t want to wait around anymore to see if it’s going to be my turn.” When he got an offer to run production at the high-end manufacturer James Tyler Guitars, he leapt at the opportunity—finding a mentor in the titular builder, who “ran his shop like a pirate” and followed his gut above all else. “When everyone was doing the roasted necks, he was like, ‘I don’t really like how it sounds, so we’re not doing it,’” he says. “I remember some of his finance guys saying, ‘We can charge more.’ But he didn’t care.” After Tyler’s health took a turn, Hicks wound up running production and building simultaneously, often working two shifts a day to help steer the ship opposite general manager Rich Renken. This was another valuable learning moment, but he felt like there was unfinished business back at his old stomping grounds.
After a serendipitous phone call with Fender’s Ron Thorn, who told him a spot was opening up at the Custom Shop, that feeling only solidified. “As soon as Ron said this, it was like, ‘That’s the thing. I have to know if I can do it,’” Hicks recalls. “I think I left Tyler in good hands, so there were no bad feelings. It was an emotional day, coming in here, being welcomed back. It was an interesting first day, too, because you know everyone’s name. [laughs] It just felt right. It felt like coming home.”
He returned with a wealth of knowledge, but none of it prepared him for one particular build: making a new model for his favorite guitarist of all time, Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray. “It was completely insane,” he says. “They were about to start this multi-year tour and wanted another guitar. I was working really closely with his tech, fine-tuning his model a little bit.” He decked the bridge, adjusted the neck angle, oil-finished the neck—tailoring it as best he could to Murray’s preferences. Despite all that hard work, it was still tense waiting for feedback. “I shipped it off and got an email a couple days later from Dave,” he recalls. “It just said ‘Regarding the guitar’ [in the subject line], and it’s a Schrödinger’s cat situation: ‘I’m gonna open this email, and one of two things happens: He either likes the guitar, and that’s good, or he doesn’t like it, and now what do I do?’ He said how much he loved it. His guitar tech reached out and said it was going to be his number-one for the tour. And now we’ve announced that we’re launching the master-built version of that.”
Hicks at his workbench.
Hicks once envisioned the guitar dominating his life—and between his day job and his own creative pursuits, that’s pretty much come true. “The bigger balancing act,” he says, “is learning how to turn the guitar off for a little bit when I’m at home with my kids,” he says. Those worlds are colliding even more than usual now, though, as his nine-year-old son is taking guitar lessons. (The kid has access to a pretty sweet setup, too, including Hicks’ Fender Tone Master Pro workstation and Tone Master FR-12 amp. Plus, he’s playing what Hicks calls “the nicest 3/4-scale Squier in the entire world,” after his hours of re-fretting and tweaking.)
Back home at Fender, Hicks is master-building the life he always wanted: “Man,” he says, “it’s been a dream come true.”
Usually, when I work on a fuzz review in my home studio, I wait until midday, take a peek out the front door to make sure that none of my neighbors are gardening or otherwise enjoying the peace of the outdoors, and then stomp away. But even these measures feel inadequate where the Gigahearts Hyper Soup is concerned. This Manchester, England, company’s take on theShin-Ei/Univox Super Fuzz—or, more correctly, the Super Fuzz-inspired Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz—is a beastly thing that thrives in high volume settings, just like its esteemed antecedents. But with a no-octave mode, as well as a mixed-voice mode that combines the mid-bumped and mid-scooped fuzz sounds, the Hyper Soup (what an excellent name!) achieves a malleability that the Super Fuzz, and even the FZ-2 with its EQ section, can’t touch. It even sounds superb with small amps at lower volumes that present little risk to the health and well-being of my kind neighbors.
Living Large, Sounding Larger
As a kid, the Super Fuzz was a ghostly mystery to me. The Who’s Live at Leeds was an outsized influence on my adolescent brain, and Pete Townshend loved his Super Fuzz around that time. He used it like a dagger on that record—peppering it into his solos judiciously, often in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it style that drove me crazy. What the heck was that bonkers high-pitched fuzz sound? It was like a flute sandpapered and squeezed through the nostrils of a dragon spewing fire and gravel. Infuriatingly, it took me years to find out. The Gigahearts possesses a fire that the young, boiler suit-wearing Townshend would have adored. My guess is that, as a notorious sound craftsman and studio hound, he would have loved the additional flexibility and range the Hyper Soup affords, too.
While folks that obsess over space might gripe about the slightly larger size, there are many practical benefits. For one thing, the low and high EQ knobs are well spaced and full-sized, unlike the small, stacked knobs used on the FZ-2. The mode switch is easier to use for being bigger, too—certainly more so than the side-mounted switch on a vintage Super Fuzz. Additionally, the footswitches are generously spaced and the jacks are top-mounted.
Ripped and Torn
The Hyper Soup’s Super Fuzz soul is sturdy and true. At most settings, it's a dead ringer for a Wattson FY-6 clone, which has held its own in shootouts with vintage Super Fuzz specimens. Next to an FZ-2, it shines even more brilliantly. At most equivalent settings the Hyper Soup was perceptibly, if slightly, rounder and more oxygenated. One of the most intriguing features on the Hyper Soup is the combined mid-scooped and mid-bumped modes. In some respects, the combined voices cancel out what is special about the individual ones. The mixed mode can even sound a little thinner than the single voices in some contexts, but only by a very relative measure. It’s still punchy and huge, and provides a useful alternative when slotting the Hyper Soup in an arrangement.
“The fact that you can switch between the no-octave mode for a verse and then kick on the octave for lead lines from a single pedal makes the Hyper Soup fearsomely flexible.”
The sans-octave fuzz voices—a feature neither the Super Fuzz nor FZ-2 offer—can feel like a letdown after being doused by the fractured fuzz shards of the octave fuzz. But it enables the Hyper Soup to do something Super Fuzzes do poorly, which is stay intact when you’re playing full chords. Even though you might perceive a slight drop in intensity relative to the octave voices, the Hyper Fuzz rips as a chord machine. It’s punky, thrashy, trashy, and very unique sounding. And the fact that you can switch between the no-octave mode for a verse and then kick on the octave for lead lines from a single pedal makes it fearsomely flexible. I’ve never had a ton of use for the boost mode that is derived from the FZ-2. Here it feels similarly superfluous, especially given that you cannot use it with the octave. But it still has its place, making for an interesting, non-transparent boost. And it is yet another tone multiplier in a pedal that’s already exploding with possibilities.
To my ears, the Hyper Soup is best suited to amplifiers with mid-scooped voices, no matter the mode. The mid-bumped and mid-scooped voices breathe more in the company of a 6L6-driven Fender Bassman with 2x12 cabinet than with the more mid-forward voice in an 18-watt Marshall-style Carr Bel-Ray—even when taking the extra moving air and 40-plus watts into consideration. (Pete Townshend, by the way, would not be surprised to hear that the Carr’s Hiwatt-style voice and the Hyper Soup were great friends.) I also preferred the way the pedal interacted with Telecaster single-coils to the PAFs in an SG. There is much to love, and I mean love, about an SG/Hyper Soup combination. But I heard more of the bizarre overtones that make the Hyper Soup so different and interesting with the Telecaster. Your results and preferences may well differ. But I suspect players on all sides of the Fender/Marshall/Hiwatt/PAF/single-coil divides will agree on the Hyper Soup’s capacity to rip.
The Verdict
The Super Fuzz sound is more or less an essential ingredient in my tonal diet. It’s a sound I know well. But the Super Fuzz is also a pedal you feel. The way the octave-up generates an almost metallic sensation in your teeth. The strange, fractured sense of mass when played through a big amp. Save for minor sonic variations that you might hear in an assortment of vintage specimens, the Hyper Soup delivers these sounds and feelings in spectacular fashion. At $216, this lovingly hand-built pedal is also a screaming deal by contemporary standards. Say what you will about the relative value of inexpensive variations on this circuit. If you rarely use this kind of sound, and your pedals don’t leave your house too often, those will probably suffice. But the Hyper Soup is a beautiful option that I’d bet offers a lot more longevity on top of its very useful extra features.
It’s an old studio joke, but it sticks around because it points at something deeper than money. Budgets don’t just limit time—they force commitment. And nowhere is that more obvious than during the recording process, when the record still feels malleable enough to become anything.
That sense of possibility is intoxicating. It’s also dangerous.
I’ve lived this from both sides of the glass—first as a signed artist, aware of how the clock quietly ate into my recording money, and later as a producer watching artists wrestle with the same invisible tension. At some point, the record has to stop being an idea and start being a document.
Early in a tracking session, performances tend to arrive with a kind of clarity that’s hard to manufacture later. Musicians are alert. Intentions are strong. The red light still carries weight. You hear phrasing that commits, dynamics that breathe, and little mistakes that feel wonderfully human. The song is being captured, not negotiated.
Then something subtle shifts. Takes get more refined—and usually safer. Players start listening backward instead of playing forward. Energy gives way to self-correction. Suddenly the band is performing for the playback instead of for the moment. Technically, things may improve, but past a certain point the music begins to suffer. This is the point where the studio can easily stop being a temple of documentation and become a laboratory of doubt.
Unlimited recording time accelerates this process exponentially—especially in home studios. Without constraints, every decision becomes provisional. Mic choices stay “temporary.” Arrangements remain “open.” Performances are endlessly replaced and playlisted rather than committed to. The record never quite becomes real because nothing is allowed to harden into fact.
Some of my favorite records came together quickly and felt almost divinely inevitable. Parts were chosen. Tones and effects were printed. Performances were treated as events, not auditions. Not because they were flawless, but because they told the truth of that moment. And that truth is fragile. Chase it too long and it disappears.
“Records are never finished. They’re just released. The art is knowing when to let them go.”
One of the most useful questions you can pivot to during recording isn’t, “Can we do better?” but rather, “Are we improving the song—or just exhausting it?” Knowing when to ask that question isn’t about a fixed number of takes. It’s a feel. And if the answer isn’t immediately obvious, you’re probably already past the peak.
This is where experience earns its keep—not in knowing how to fix things later, but in knowing when not to defer decisions. Every time you avoid committing during tracking, you push weight downstream. You don’t eliminate risk; you relocate it. And by the time you reach mixing, the cost of that indecision gets paid with interest.
This is why mixing so often becomes the next battlefield. When performances, arrangements, and tones remain unresolved, the mix is forced to carry emotional weight it was never meant to bear. Engineers start chasing balance problems that are really performance problems, and tonal issues that should have been settled at the microphone. Endless tweaks follow—not because the mix is unfinished, but because the record never fully decided what it wanted to be.
Budgets—financial, temporal, or self-imposed—are what can help prevent that drift. They create gravity. They force choices out of the abstract and into the real world. They turn possibility into artifact.
Records aren’t finished when every option has been explored. They’re finished when enough of the right decisions have been made that they far outweigh the remaining ones.
Records are never finished. They’re just released. The art is knowing when to let them go. Until next time, namaste
