Thanks to modern technology, you can chase the sounds in your head with a rather minimal setup. Each of the 10 guitar plugins listed below offer unique features, a wealth of options, and—maybe most importantly—less chiro visits.
Neural DSP Archetype: Petrucci
As one of the company’s most comprehensive plugins, it features four amplifiers, a pre-effects section with a wah, compressor, and four stompboxes, and a post-effects section with rack-design stereo chorus, delay, and reverb.
$169 street
Universal Audio Friedman Buxom Betty
This plugin aims for an exact representation of the original EL34-powered amp. It includes 100 recording chains, a host-syncable vintage delay unit, and preamp and power amp bypass.
$149 street
STL Tones Tonality: Andy James
Developed from Andy James' signature guitar sounds, this plugin suite uses advanced modeling algorithms to provide real-time simulations of his amps. You can also employ an 808 emulation and James’ signature preamp pedal.
$119 street
Softube Amp Room
Softube's professional audio guitar and bass platform offers a wide range of precisely modeled amplifiers, cabs, pedals, studio effects, and more, as well as several IR Producer Packs.
$149 street
Blue Cat Axiom
A fully customizable amp simulation based on Blue Cat's Destructor, this software has a flexible routing system with two parallel amp simulation channels, input and master sections, and more than 70 built-in effects.
$199 street
bluecataudio.comWaves GTR3
This collection of amps comes with Fender, Marshall, Mesa/Boogie, and Vox plugin models, in addition to over 30 different cab simulations and 25 stompboxes, including distortion, delays, and modulation.
$129 street
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 6 Pro
Here’s a setup that offers a range of classic vintage tones and modern high-gain sounds, and artist presets from Yvette Young, Vernon Reid, Pete Thorn, Zola Jesus, and Eric Krasno.
$199 street
IK Multimedia TONEX
TONEX is a standalone application that allows users to create, play, and share 400 of their own Tone Models of amps, cabinets, combos, and pedals. It comes with 40 amps and 20 pedals.
$149 street
ikmultimedia.comLine 6 Metallurgy Collection
Using this collection of Metallurgy’s Modern, Thrash, and Doom plugins, you can select a variety of high-gain tones drawn from the company's HX line of amps and cabs.
$199 street
Overloud TH-U Eric Gales Expansion Pack
One of the most astounding blues guitarists of his generation, Eric Gales, has collaborated with Overloud on this plugin that emulates his live rig. It includes three amps, three cabs, and 15 effects.
$59 street
Taylor Gold Label 814e SB
GOLD LABEL: A bold new Taylor acoustic collection.
Available in two models, each with an optional sunburst — Gold Label 814e (natural top), Gold Label 814e SB, Gold Label 814e Koa (natural top), and Gold Label 814e Koa SB — the collection blends traditional and modern elements in an inspiring new way and expands Taylor’s musical palette to appeal to an even more diverse range of players.
The Gold Label Collection draws inspiration from classic 1930s and ’40s flat top acoustic guitars, delivering a warmer, fuller tone that blends a heritage voice with a new version of Taylor's award-winning V-Class bracing technology. The collection features several groundbreaking design elements, including the new Super Auditorium body style, a Fanned V-Class bracing pattern, and a long-tenon neck joint, all of which contribute to a richer, more resonant, more muscular sound. The collection also introduces two distinctive wood pairings: Honduran rosewood back and sides with a torrefied Sitka spruce top, producing exceptional harmonic richness, and figured Hawaiian koa coupled with torrefied Sitka spruce, delivering a more balanced, rounded tone.
Taylor Gold Label 814e
“The harder you play, the louder the guitar gets,” says Powers. “But it naturally starts to compress the sound into a more controlled, focused tone rather than becoming mushy. Yet these guitars also respond to delicate articulation with a broadly rich voice. When you play a simple note softly, the guitar naturally amplifies it with surprising warmth and volume.”
With its unique sound and aesthetic, the Gold Label Collection sits apart from Taylor’s other premium lines, offering a guitar that combines the warmth and tonal character of traditional instruments with the playability and reliability Taylor is known for. The collection's craftsmanship extends beyond its sonic capabilities, with a fresh visual aesthetic that combines classic influences with modern artistry. The result is a guitar that will appeal to a broad range of players, offering a distinctive voice and performance that bring together the best of both old and new.
Whether for recording, live performance, or personal enjoyment, the Gold Label Collection provides musicians with a guitar that is as visually striking as it is sonically impressive.
PRS Standard 24 Satin Electric Guitar - Satin Red Apple Metallic
The PRS Standard 24 features many classic PRS specifications, including a 25” scale length, Pattern Thin neck with a 24-fret, 10” radius rosewood fretboard, PRS Patented Tremolo, and PRS Phase III tuners with unplated brass shafts. Under the hood, the PRS Standard 24 is outfitted with the all-new PRS DMO treble and bass pickups with volume and tone controls and a 5-way blade switch. PRS DMO (Dynamic, Musical, Open) pickups have a “wide open” sound with vocal character, meaning they deliver clear, pleasant-sounding tones across a wide range of frequencies (bass to treble) in each pickup. DMO pickups were personally designed by Paul Reed Smith and the PRS New Products Engineering team. From our own hands-on research into coveted vintage pickup models to advancements in signal analyzation and “tuning” technology, these pickups incorporate every detail of pickup knowledge PRS has gained in recent years of R&D.
Andy’s axe!
Best known as the guitarist from the Police, Summers was born and raised in England. He picked up the guitar at a young age, and moved to London when he was 19, aspiring to become a professional musician. Eventually, he played with some legendary bandleaders, including Eric Burdon and Jimi Hendrix. Summers studied classical guitar and composition in Los Angeles at California State University, Northridge, graduating in 1972. After moving back to London, he played with Joan Armatrading, Jon Lord, Mike Oldfield, and many more before meeting Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) and Stewart Copeland and joining the Police in 1977. The rest, as they say, is history.
The guitar Summers is most associated with—and which you can hear on a lot of the band’s hit records—is a well-worn and heavily modified sunburst Fender Telecaster. Let’s dive into what makes it so unique.
The story goes that before returning to the U.K. from Los Angeles, Summers bought this Telecaster from one of his guitar students for $200 (approximately $1,420 today). It was already highly modified, and Summers instantly fell in love with it. Modifications included a brass nut and brass bridge plate with six individual brass saddles. The bridge pickup was installed directly into the body and there is a humbucker in the neck position, plus it had a phase switch on the bridge pickup and an additional third pot and switch controlling its active boost circuitry. The only mod Summers did on the guitar after receiving it was installing replacement Schaller tuners.
Summers has stated that the guitar is from 1961, although, because of the double binding on the body, it’s quite possibly a sunburst Telecaster Custom from 1963. The serial number on the neck heel indicates 1961, suggesting Fender may have used pre-produced necks from an earlier batch for the first run of Telecaster Customs in 1963. Or maybe it was a custom order from someone who wanted double binding in 1961? Dennis Galuszka from the Fender Custom Shop was the lucky guy who had the pleasure of taking the original instrument apart to closely study it while collecting info for the Tribute series. In September 2024, he told Guitar World: “If I had to guess, it looks like the neck came off a ’50s Tele because it actually had a little white blonde paint—like they used on ’50s Teles—left on the butt. But the neck pocket had no date written or stamped on it, which was weird. And the body has been routed out so much under the pickguard that all traces of a date are long gone.” There are no records at the Fender factory that can shed any more light on this, so it will remain a mystery—but not the only one.
Putting a neck humbucker on a Telecaster was nothing too special at this time; same goes for the phase switch. But while brass hardware had become a popular mod to many guitars by the mid-to-late ’70s, it wasn’t something that was common on Telecasters (or on Fenders in general), making the brass nut and bridge plate unusual.
Another mystery is the active booster circuitry inside this guitar. When the Fender Custom Shop released the Masterbuilt Andy Summers Tribute Telecaster in the mid 2000s, it was equipped with the mid-boost circuit from the Eric Clapton Strat. This circuit first debuted in 1983 in the Fender Elite Stratocaster, 10 years after Summers received this Telecaster. So the circuit used in Summers’ Telecaster must have been a different one. Keeping the timeline in mind, it’s likely that it was one of the many treble-boost circuits from this era—maybe something like the Dallas Rangemaster, EHX LPB-1, or something similar with a single-pot boost control. Or maybe it came from a cannibalized stompbox or was a home-brewed device ... again, this will remain a mystery. My personal guess is that the original circuit in the guitar stopped working after 1983, and one of the guitar techs had to replace it. Maybe Summers was not interested in those details, and as long as there was a boost available, he didn’t care what was going on under the hood.
Belt-buckle rash? A bit.
Photo courtesy of Ten-Guitars (https://ten-guitars.de)
Another mystery is the identity of the student who he purchased the guitar from. Summers has never shared their name, and we don’t know who modded it. Interestingly, in all those years, no one ever spoke up to earn the credits for this modding work. This alone fuels speculation as to who really did all these mods.
Now, let’s take a look what features this guitar has:
• 2-piece alder body, white double binding, 3-tone sunburst finish
• Quarter-sawn maple neck, C profile, 21 vintage frets, 7 1/4" fretboard radius, brass nut
• Scale length 25 1/2", width at nut 1.650"
• Brass bridge plate with six individual brass saddles
• Schaller M6 tuning machines
• Two butterfly string trees
• Rectangular jack plate held by only two of four screws
• 3-ply mint green pickguard with ’59 PAF humbucker in the neck position and ’60s Telecaster single-coil pickup directly mounted into the body
• Standard Telecaster 3-way pickup selector switch with modern wiring: bridge/bridge + neck in parallel/neck
• 250k master audio volume, 250k master audio tone controls
• Mini-toggle phase switch for the bridge pickup on the control plate
• Extensive routing on the back housing the active boost circuitry, 9V battery, and the additional third pot for controlling the amount of boost, all covered with a homemade backplate out of 3-ply black pickguard material
In the next installment of this column, we will break it down piece by piece, talk about the wiring, and how you can build your own Andy Summers tribute Telecaster, so stay tuned.
Until then ... keep on modding!
