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Top 10 First Looks of 2022

Sure, perennial big hitters like Gibson, Fender, PRS, and MXR dazzled with fresh offerings, but one surprising stunner earned the most clicks.


10. Warm Audio Centavo & Warmdrive

John Bohlinger

The vintage-style gear specialists dive into the legacy of two classic drive pedals.

9. Supro Amulet

John Bohlinger

Power attenuation plus all-tube tremolo and reverb make this a killer club amp at a nice price.

8. MXR Poly Blue Octave

John Bohlinger

Pitch shifting, deep modulation, and monster fuzz make this single box a multi-headed tone mutator.

7. Gretsch G5420T Electromatic Hollowbody

John Bohlinger

Trestle-block bracing and new, refined FT-5E Filter'Tron pickups make a classic shape punchy, powerful, and more feedback resistant.

6. Magnatone Starlite

John Bohlinger

Maggie’s 5-watt mighty mite bursts with black-panel and tweed-Champ style sounds.

5. MXR Duke of Tone

John Bohlinger

An impressive taste of what lurks in the King’s chambers for players on a budget.

4. Fender Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe

Premier Guitar

The Mississippi blues maestro’s signature instrument is a potent and dazzling evolution of an underrated Tele’.

3. Gibson Theodore

John Bohlinger

Ted McCarty's archives reveal a long-lost treasure.

2. PRS SE Silver Sky John Mayer

John Bohlinger

An affordable version of John Mayer’s signature solidbody sacrifices little in the way of tone and quality, and sells for well under a grand.

1. Yamaha Revstar Standard RSS02T

John Bohlinger

A chambered body makes Yamaha's latest café racer-inspired electric a truly lightweight machine.

Guitarist William Tyler, a restless sonic explorer: “I would get bored staying in the same place.”

Photo by Angelina Castillo

The expansive instrumental guitarist/composer pushes himself out of his comfort zone, beyond the boundaries of his neo-Americana wheelhouse on Time Indefinite.

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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.

As head of Breedlove and Bedell Guitars, he’s championed sustainability and environmental causes—and he wants to tell you about it.

As the owner of the Breedlove and Bedell guitar companies, Tom Bedell has been a passionate advocate for sustainable practices in acoustic guitar manufacturing. Listening to him talk, it’s clear that the preservation of the Earth’s forests are just as important to Bedell as the sound of his guitars. You’ll know just how big of a statement that is if you’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with one of his excellently crafted high-end acoustics, which are among the finest you’ll find. Over the course of his career, Bedell has championed the use of alternative tonewoods and traveled the world to get a firsthand look at his wood sources and their harvesting practices. When you buy a Bedell, you can rest assured that no clear-cut woods were used.

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A beautifully realized mashup of two iconic guitars.

Reader: Ward Powell

Hometown: Ontario, Canada

Guitar: ES-339 Junior

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ENGL, renowned for its high-performance amplifiers, proudly introduces the EP635 Fireball IR Pedal, a revolutionary 2-channel preamp pedal designed to deliver the legendary Fireball tone in a compact and feature-rich format.

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