The Avada is an affordable, U.S.-made guitar from U.S. Masters
U.S. Masters use a hard (rock) maple neck which they believe gives the Avada SFT improvements in sound quality, strength and stability over mahogany neck guitars. The neck is attached to the body using U.S. Masters Interlocking Set-neck joint to provide the coupling between neck and body. Chosen both for tone and for appearance, the body is solid mahogany, 1 3/4” thick. They said the low mass finish is good for tone and the satin surface gives the neck that “broken-in” feel of a guitar that you’ve played for years.
According to U.S. Masters, the maple neck as strong as compared to mahogany necks. Even so, the neck design features a volute and an angled headstock to make the headstock even stronger and the additional stiffness provides pitch and tuning stability. In addition, a 2-way truss rod provides adjustment for proper neck relief with good with high alloy nickel silver frets.
- mahogany body with Hard (rock) maple neck
- fully sealed, hand-rubbed satin urethane varnish
- 24 3/4" scale, 22 fret, 12" radius
- Bolivian rosewood fretboard
- Tune-O-Matic bridge
- Dual Humbuckers with optional upgrades of DiMarzio or EMG
- non-locking Sperzel tuners
- Graph Tech nut
U.S. Masters Avada SFT electric guitar includes a hardshell case at $1250 MSRP and a street price of $899.
It is available in a darkened natural satin finish or a satin black finish.
For more info:
U.S. Masters Guitar Works
Pearl Jam announces U.S. tour dates for April and May 2025 in support of their album Dark Matter.
In continued support of their 3x GRAMMY-nominated album Dark Matter, Pearl Jam will be touring select U.S. cities in April and May 2025.
Pearl Jam’s live dates will start in Hollywood, FL on April 24 and 26 and wrap with performances in Pittsburgh, PA on May 16 and 18. Full tour dates are listed below.
Support acts for these dates will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets for these concerts will be available two ways:
- A Ten Club members-only presale for all dates begins today. Only paid Ten Club members active as of 11:59 PM PT on December 4, 2024 are eligible to participate in this presale. More info at pearljam.com.
- Public tickets will be available through an Artist Presale hosted by Ticketmaster. Fans can sign up for presale access for up to five concert dates now through Tuesday, December 10 at 10 AM PT. The presale starts Friday, December 13 at 10 AM local time.
earl Jam strives to protect access to fairly priced tickets by providing the majority of tickets to Ten Club members, making tickets non-transferable as permitted, and selling approximately 10% of tickets through PJ Premium to offset increased costs. Pearl Jam continues to use all-in pricing and the ticket price shown includes service fees. Any applicable taxes will be added at checkout.
For fans unable to use their purchased tickets, Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster will offer a Fan-to-Fan Face Value Ticket Exchange for every city, starting at a later date. To sell tickets through this exchange, you must have a valid bank account or debit card in the United States. Tickets listed above face value on secondary marketplaces will be canceled. To help protect the Exchange, Pearl Jam has also chosen to make tickets for this tour mobile only and restricted from transfer. For more information about the policy issues in ticketing, visit fairticketing.com.
For more information, please visit pearljam.com.
Snark releases its most compact model ever: the Crazy Little Thing rechargeable clip-on headstock tuner.
Offering precise tuning accuracy and a super bright display screen, the Crazy Little Thing is approximately the size of your guitar pick – easy to use, unobtrusive and utterly dependable.
Housed in a sturdy shell, the Crazy Little Thing can be rotated for easy viewing from any angle, and its amazingly bright display makes it perfect for the sunniest outdoor stages or the darkest indoor studios. You can clip it to the front of your headstock or on the back of your headstock for extra-discreet usage – and you can easily adjust the display to accommodate your preference.
As the newest addition to Snark’s innovative line of headstock tuners, the Crazy Little Thing is rechargeable (no batteries!) and comes with a USB-C cable/adapter for easy charging. Its display screen includes a battery gauge, so you can easily tell when it’s time to recharge.
The Crazy Little Thing’s highly responsive tuning sensor works great with a broad range of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin and more. It also offers adjustable pitch calibration: its default reference pitch is A440, but also offers pitch calibration at 432Hz and 442 Hz.
Snark’s Crazy Little Thing rechargeable headstock tuner carries a street price of $21.99. For more information visit snarktuners.com.
Trey Anastasio unveils plans for a special solo acoustic run starting in March, 2025.
The tour gets underway March 8, 2025 at Springfield, MA’s Symphony Hall and then visits US theatres and concert halls through early April. Real-time presales begin Wednesday, December 4 exclusively via treytickets.shop.ticketstoday.com. All remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday, December 6 – please check venues for on-sale times. For complete details, please see trey.com/tour.
TREY ANASTASIO - SOLO ACOUSTIC TOUR 2025
MARCH
8 – Springfield, MA – Symphony Hall
9 – Boston, MA – Wang Theatre at Boch Center
11 – Wilkes-Barre, PA – The F.M. Kirby Center
12 - Rochester, NY - Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
14 – Columbus, OH – Mershon Auditorium
15 – Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theater
16 – Nashville, IN – Brown County Music Center
18 – Chicago, IL – Orchestra Hall
19 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theatre
21 – New Orleans, LA – Saenger Theatre
22 – Birmingham, AL – Alabama Theatre
23 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
26 – Orlando, FL – Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
28 – Clearwater, FL – Ruth Eckerd Hall
29 – Savannah, GA – Johnny Mercer Theatre
30 – Charleston, SC – Gaillard Auditorium
APRIL
1 – Knoxville, TN – Tennessee Theatre
2 – Greenville, SC - Peace Concert Hall
4 – Washington, DC – Warner Theatre
5 - Red Bank, NJ - Count Basie Center for the Arts
More info: TREY.COM.
Session secret weapon Rob McNelley demos his gotta-have-it studio gear.
Rob McNelley spends a lot of time at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville. When he says, “I live here,” he’s only half kidding. McNelley has recorded with country superstars like Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Luke Combs, and more, and he’s performed with Wynonna Judd, Delbert McClinton, Bob Seger, and Lee Ann Womack—and that’s on top of his own solo releases. He’s probably listened to his rig with headphones more than without.
McNelley ditches the headphones when PG’s John Bohlinger pays him a visit at Sound Stage for this Rig Rundown. Check out McNelley’s choice gear below.
Brought to you by D’Addario.A Golden Trade
McNelley traded a 1962 Gibson SG to bassist Victor Krauss in return for this 1953 goldtop Les Paul—which did, admittedly, have a broken headstock at one point. In addition to the Music City bridge, which keeps great intonation and holds strings over their pole pieces, another novelty is the height of the tone and volume knobs, which stand taller than most stock knobs from the era. McNelley uses D’Addario .010s on this axe.
Ready for Petty
This pre-CBS 1963 Fender Stratocaster went out on the road with McNelley when he played with Bob Seger. Besides a refret, it’s totally stock and gives McNelley a perfect Tom Petty tone thanks to its unusually balanced bridge pickup. It takes D’Addario .011s.
Green Donkey
This metal baritone by Mule Resophonic Guitars made its way into Luke Combs’ song “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma,” for this summer’s blockbuster movie Twisters. For this and other guitars, McNelley uses Dunlop Ultex picks—.88mm for leads, .73mm for rhythm.
Old Man, Look at My Life
McNelley’s father, a guitarist himself, bought this Telecaster at Gruhn Guitars in 1981 while working on some records in Nashville. When a young McNelley saw it, he was enamored—but the guitar disappeared, and when McNelley’s father passed, it wasn’t in his collection. Years later, McNelley discovered that the guitar was in the possession of Paul Worley, the producer of the records his dad was working on. McNelley met with him and said that if he ever wanted to sell it, McNelley wanted first dibs. A few months later, a mutual friend invited McNelley over. There was the guitar, in a brown tolex case, just as enchanting as it was years before—Worley wanted McNelley to have his dad’s old guitar. That was nearly 30 years ago.
Aside from a refinished body, this one is all-original, too.
Bought from Buk
McNelley got this rare totally stock 1959 Gibson ES-355 Mono, complete with PAFs, from Tom Bukovac—one of many acquisitions from the player over the years.
Also in McNelley’s studio stable are a Gibson Rick Nielsen “Collector’s Choice” Les Paul with Tom Holmes pickups, and a rehabbed Silvertone acoustic. A friend of McNelley’s cleaned it up and installed a humbucker and rubber bridge—a popular Nashville trend these days. It takes flatwound strings.
Rob McNelley’s Studio Amps
McNelley maintains a collection of amplifiers at Sound Stage, but his number-one is his 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb, with a mod by tech Nick Rose at Jeff Hime’s shop to make it gainier—a trick Rick Nielsen allegedly did to his Deluxe Reverb.
A Hime-modded Marshall SV20H Studio Vintage MK II gets him big-stack tones in small recording rooms, and a pair of Fender Bassmans are on hand, too. The final piece is an early Matchless SC-30 combo, but all amps go through McNelley’s Carr cabinet—an open-back 112 with a Warehouse ET65 speaker.
McNelley likes to switch amps by hand rather than with a switching system; it gives him time to think about what he’s going to play next.
Apologies to Mr. O’Neal
XTS built McNelley’s main board, but Rob has made a few adjustments as pedals have conked out, so it’s not as seamless as it once was—don’t be mad, Barry! McNelley’s guitar hits a Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-200 before going into Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe, Xotic RC Booster, Ibanez MT10 Mostortion, ARC Effects Klone, Analog Man King of Tone, Electro-Harmonix POG2, Analog Man Boss GE-7/Pro, Boss VB-2w, Strymon TimeLine, Strymon Mobius, Strymon Flint, and a Mission Engineering Expressionator. A Diamond Memory Lane sits just off the board, and other goodies out of sight include a BSM RW-F Treble Booster, FXengineering RAF Mirage Compressor, and Analog Man Sun Bender MK IV.
Shop Rob McNelley's Rig
1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop
1955 Fender Telecaster
1963 Fender Stratocaster
Mule Resophonic Guitars Mulecaster
Gibson Rick Nielsen “Collector’s Choice” Les Paul
FX engineering RAF Mirage Compressor
Diamond Memory Lane
Strymon Mobius
Strymon TimeLine
Analog Man King of Tone
Boss VB-2w
Strymon Flint
Mission Engineering Expressionator
EHX POG2
Ibanez MT10 Mostortion
Xotic Effects RC Booster
Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe
Dunlop Volume X pedal
ARC Effects Klone
Apollo Approved Audio Devices Sawdust
AmpRx BrownBox
Fender Bassman
Marshall SV20H MK II
Fender Deluxe Reverb
Warehouse ET 65 speakers