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The Year in Gear 2019

The 60+ guitars, amps, pedals, basses, and accessories that stood out from the crowd and earned our coveted Premier Gear Award this year.

DryBell Unit67


You could probably count the Urei 1176 compressor among the three or four tools most likely to make your guitar sound automatically awesome in a studio. So what if you mated a compression circuit based on the 1176 to the nearly-as-legendary Dallas Rangemaster treble booster? DryBell calls the fruits of this effort Unit67. But we call its impressive tone massaging capabilities and flexibility positively awesome.

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$289 street, drybell.com

Plus! December Premier Gear Award Winners!
Read the full reviews on the pages indicated below!

1. Peavey Invective.MH$699 street, peavey.com
2. Chase Bliss Dark World$349 street, chaseblissaudio.com
3. Comins CGS-16 $2,399 street, cominsguitars.com
4. Ernie Ball Music Man Short-Scale StingRay$1,999 street, music-man.com
5. EBS MicroBass 3$349 street, ebssweden.com


This wonky Zim-Gar was one of many guitars sold by importer Gar-Zim Musical Instruments, operated by Larry Zimmerman and his wife.

The 1960s were strange days indeed for import guitars, like this cleaver-friendly Zim-Gar electric.

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In line with the MOOER’s recent expansion on the MSC range, the company is excited to announce the new MSC50 Pro, an Alder-bodied electric guitar with gloss finish, available in the new Magic Crystal color.

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The Oceans Abyss expands on Electro-Harmonix’s highly acclaimed reverb technology to deliver a truly immersive effects workstation. The pedal is centered around dual reverb engines that are independently programmable with full-stereo algorithms including Hall, Spring, Shimmer and more. Place these reverbs into a customizable signal path with additional FX blocks like Delay, Chorus, Tremolo, or Bit Crusher for a completely unique soundscape building experience.

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Our columnist’s silver-panel Fender Bandmaster.

How this longstanding, classic tube amp design evolved from its introduction in 1953.

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