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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.

Caparison Horus-M3 CC

Caparison builds high-end metal machines for Killswitch Engage and Mattias Eklundh, and now their artist roster includes Courtney Cox of the Iron Maidens. Her signature Horus-M3 CC has a maple body, mahogany wings, a Schaller floating tremolo and locking nut, Gotoh tuners, and a cutaway with access to the 27th fret. The CC’s Caparison pickups offer a refreshing change from the sound of active pickups so prominent in modern metal.

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$2,799 street, caparisonguitars.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


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The Joe Bonamassa Greenburst Stratocaster Pickup Set Demo | NAMM 2025
- YouTube

Seymour Duncan and blues-rock hero Joe Bonamassa continue their decade-long collaboration with Strat pickups based on the set from Joe’s own fabled 1964 refin-ed Strat he calls the Greenburst. These are exacting reproductions of that guitar’s stock grey-bottom pickups, made for tone hunters, and carry a $375 MAP. They’ve got period-correct wiring and staggered alnico 5 magnets, and sound notable punchy with a higher output. The first 500 come in limited edition packaging signed by JB himself.

Seymour Duncan Powerstage 700 Bass Demo | NAMM 2025
- YouTube

Seymour Duncan unveiled the newest addition to its popular Powerstage workhorse pedal series … for bass. The Powerstage 700 Bass is a power amp with huge headroom that’s designed for use with modelers and has a rich menu of functions: drive, level gain, multi-band EQ, master volume, and EQ bypass, presence, frequency. The tag is, aptly, $700.

Ryan Malicsi Signature

Reverend introduces new signatures, an addition to its Sensei line, and a new 5-string bass.

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