PG editors pick their top gear from the second day of Summmer NAMM 2016. See everything from day 2 in our photo gallery.
The Senn by Eastwood
Eastwood's collaborating with respected guitar builders to create a line of more affordable "boutique-style" guitars. New for NAMM, Nashville builder Jeff Senn's retro mojo heavy entry, the Senn.
Alexander Pedals Radical Reverse
Alexander Pedals makes no secret of their appetite for weird. And for those that similarly embrace this ethos, the Radical Reverse delay will be as welcome as the first blooms of spring. The key to the reverse delay is a truly effective mix control that lends the summed output a more integrated, tape-like quality. The effect is compounded by a cool, rangy modulation (tweak) control. It's also switchable between spiral and fractured granular delays. At $189, that's a lot of weird for the price too.
Greer Amplification Super Hornet
Fuzz with buzz: the Greer Super Hornet by Greer Amplification debuts at NAMM. It's a powerhouse octave fuzz inspired by the classic Foxx Tone Machine, with NOS BC-107B transistors juicing up the circuit. With a momentary Stinger switch to goose up the tone and make it slice, it goes from proud octave roar to wall of raging sound instantly.
Swindler Effects Red Mountain Tremolo
Birmingham, Alabama's Swindler Effects showed this prototype of their Red Mountain tremolo at NAMM, which will likely hit the streets in August. It's pretty loaded for a compact tremolo circuit, with expression options for depth and rate, a phase inversion switch, a preset, five wave forms and a stutter switch you can use to create momentary tremolo effects a hyper speeds. Street price will be around $175.
Yamaha Revstar
In addition to introducing a couple of new Pacifica solidbodies, Yamaha came to NAMM with two tweaks to its swaggering new Revstar line. At left is the Japanese master-luthier-built version ($1,799 street) with vintage-toned alnico-7 pickups and a copper pickguard, while the standard Indonesian-made Revstar at right displays the new Bigsby option.
Coppersound Pedals Telegraph Stutter
Boston's Coppersound Pedals debuted the Telegraph Stutter, a simple kill pedal that looks like something your grandpappy might have used to warn the next town that a buffalo stampede was on the way. Imaginative and basic all at once, and tagged at only $45.
Valve Train Amps Santa Monica
We're big fans of just about everything Valvetrain Amps has built, but the company had been relatively quiet of late. That'll change this autumn with the release of the Santa Monica (you're seeing a late-stage prototype here)--a '63 Bassman inspired howler that will be around 45 ways and in the neighborhood of $1,600 when it hits the street. Stay tuned!
Valeton Pedals
First-time NAMM-ers Valeton brought a bunch of new miniature stomps to Nashville, including the shrunken yet very familiar-looking Loft series—nine pedals with all-analog signal paths based on classic Japanese pedals of yore. Shown here, the pink HB Flanger is based on the old HF-2 Hi-Band Flanger, the blue Analog Chorus aims for old CE-2 tones, and the root-beer-colored Octave goes for the endearingly glitchy vibe of yesteryear's OC-2.
Foxpedal's Wave and Defector Fuzz
Richland, Washington, stomp outfit Foxpedal made its NAMM debut with a diverse line of pedals that includes the Wave reverb/delay (left)—which has Echorec-, Space Echo-, and Echoplex-style modes, as well as a self-oscillation "wash" footswitch—and the Russian-style Defector fuzz. The latter has a unique pre-gain stage, as well as a footswitch that sends your signal into an instant feedback frenzy.
Gretsch Tom Petersson
Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson brought his most tantalizing signature 12-string bass ever to this year's Summer NAMM. The Fender Custom Shop-built anachronistic wonder doesn't come cheap with its street price of $11,999, but it looks 100-percent badass—as if it's seen decades of loving yet gentle road use. Features include Filter'Tron-style blade humbuckers, a metal armrest, and a faithfully quirky ol' belt-buckle protector around back.