Smooth blues slide? Check. Mellow, soulful tones with an edge? Check. Epic gear? Check and double-check.
It's hard to stand out as a blues guitarist, but Justin Johnson has built an enormous following of loyal fans because he is too good to ignore. You've all probably seen the wild, long-haired dude tearing it up on a 3-string shovel. The novelty might have earned him over 1-million followers, but what makes people come back for more is his undeniably cool music. Johnson invited John Bohlinger and the PG team to his Nashville home to take us through his rig.
[Brought to you by D'Addario XL Strings: https://www.daddario.com/XLRR]
Wild Customs Gyrock
This Wild Customs Gyrock guitar uses rotating pickup modules that can be spun around in place for different tone recipes. The body is chambered Honduran mahogany matched with a carved Canadian maple top, maple neck, and a Brazilian pau ferro fretboard.
Johnson has an ammo box full of different pickups that he can pop into his Gyrock as needed. It stays strung with GHS Stringsāa Justin Johnson Signature Guitar Strings Standard set (.10ā.50).
Furch Master's Choice 2019SB Dc-SR SPE
This Furch Master's Choice 2019SB Dc-SR SPE acoustic/electric with a cutaway features a Sitka spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides. The body is protected by Furch's proprietary Full-Pore High-Gloss Finish and it's got the company's CNR Systemāan adjustable truss rod inside a carbon casingāfor improved neck stability. There's an LR Baggs Stagepro Element pickup system onboard, too.
Dobro Duolian
This vintage Dobro Duolian has a Lace low-profile acoustic pickup and is strung with Johnson's Slide signature set: (.11ā.50.)
Early '30s Dobro
This mystery resonatorāpossibly an early '30s Dobroāhad the finish stripped off years ago and has been updated with a 12-Bar Blues low-profile resonator humbucker.
Homegrown Strings 4-String Resonator
Here's a look inside Johnson's Homegrown Strings 4-string resonator made from a cigar box and found objects. The pickup is a small piezo hot-glued inside a bottle cap.
Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster Limited Edition
Johnson's Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster Limited Edition is strung through its ash body, with Johnson's Standard signature strings.
FireWild by Wild Customs
His FireWild by Wild Customs has a 6-way toggle and it coil-splits. It look a bit like a Firebird mixed with an Iceman, and has a mahogany body and neck, a pao ferro fretboard and a Bigsby. The neck and middle pickups are TV Jones Power'Trons and the bridge has a Power'Tron+.
Signature Whiskey Barrel Guitar Built by Big D Guitars
Johnson's No. 1 is his Signature Whiskey Barrel Guitar built by Big D Guitars. This chambered T-style is made from reclaimed whiskey barrel tops, paired with aged Tennessee barn wood, scatterwound pickups, a Bigsby, an aged maple neck, jumbo frets, and locking tuners. We meant to film this very cool instrument, but got lost in the frenzy of guitars and never got around to it. Dang!
Yes, he's also got a 3-string shovel guitar. It's got a custom-wound low-profile humbucker from 12-Bar Blues Pickups. The trippy artwork was painted by Grecian tattoo artist Santa Tinta and the matching strap was made by LeROCKSKIN. Strings are the A, D, and G from a Justin Johnson Signature Slide set.
Justin Johnson's Pedalboards
Johnson has several 'boards, so let's go with the signal flow. This Morton pedalboard has a modular mounting system that enables him to adjust the size and shape of the board as his layout changes. After hitting his XVive Audio U2 wireless, his signal enters a Mad Professor Loud 'N Proud fuzz, a J. Rockett Audio Archer Ikon, an Ibanez TS808, an ADV Systems #overdrive, a Danelectro Back Talk Reverse Delay, a Gamechanger Audio Plasma Pedal, an Ibanez DE7 Echo/Delay, a T-Rex Image Looper, a Gamechanger Audio Plus piano-style sustain pedal, an API Audio TranZformer ā¦
⦠a Universal Audio UAFX Astra Modulation Machine Pedal, Starlight Echo Station, and Golden Reverberator ā¦
⦠into a Live Wire Solutions ABY Box to send juice to his Fishman Aura Spectrum DI Imaging Pedal or a Hughes & Kettner ampāor both.
And that T-Rex Replicator shares real estate with a Gator GTR-PWR-12 power supply and a Big Joe Power Box Li2 lithium pedalboard battery.
Hughes & Kettner Triamp MKIII
As you'd expect, there's no shortage of amps in Johnson's arsenal. Here's his Hughes & Kettner Triamp MKIII 150-watt 3-channel programmable tube head.
Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40
And here's his Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40, which is switchable between 40, 20, 5, and 1 watts. He's got a 120-watt-rated 2x12 cab, also by H&K, to deliver his tones.
Fishman Loudbox Artist BT
This Fishman Loudbox Artist BT 120-watt 1x8" acoustic combo also has a tweeter and Bluetooth.
Fishman Loudbox Mini
Its compadre is a Fishman Loudbox Mini, which has a 6 1/2" speaker and a battery-power option. He also has a Mad Professor 51 RT Old School 51-watt tube head.
Whitman Audio introduces the Decoherence Drive and Wave Collapse Fuzz, two innovative guitar pedals designed to push the boundaries of sound exploration. With unique features like cascading gain stages and vintage silicon transistor fuzz, these pedals offer musicians a new path to sonic creativity.
Whitman Audio, a new audio effects company, has launched with two cutting-edge guitar pedals, the Decoherence drive and Wave Collapse fuzz. Combining science and art to craft audio effects devices, Whitman Audio aims to transcend the ordinary, believing that magic can occur when the right musician meets the right tool.
Delivering a solution for musicians looking to explore a wide range of sounds, each pedal offers a unique path to finding your own voice. The Decoherence drive injects a universe of unique saturation into your music arsenal while the Wave Collapse fuzz takes you to uncharted sonic territories.
Decoherence features include:
- Cascading stages (Gain A > Gain B) each with a unique sound and saturation character
- Gain A - Medium to high gain stage with a mid focus for clear articulation and punch
- Gain B - Low to Medium gain with a neutral EQ that compliments and expands Gain A
- G/S Toggle - Selects the clipping diodes for Gain B (NOS Germanium or NOS Silicon)
- Tone Knobs (H & L) - Tuned active Baxendall style EQs that boost or cut Highs and Lows
- True bypass switching, accepts standard 9V DC power supplies (does not accept battery)
Introducing: Decoherence Drive -Ā YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Wave Collapse features include:
- Vintage Silicon transistor fuzz that goes from vintage clean to doom metal mean
- Buffered input and pickup simulation ensure it sounds great anywhere in your chain
- Bias Knob - Allows for a huge range of texture and response in the pedals gain structure
- Range and Mass Toggles - Provide easy access to three diverse bass and gain ranges
- Filter Knob - A simple-to-use tilt EQ enhanced by the Center toggle for two mid responses
- True bypass switching, accepts standard 9V DC power supplies (does not accept battery)
The Decoherence drive and Wave Collapse fuzz pedals carry retail prices of $195.00 each.
For more information, please visit whitmanaudio.com.
Introducing: Wave Collapse Fuzz - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
The Chicago-via-New York trio of best friends reinterpret the best bits of college-rock and ā90s indie on their new record, Phonetics On and On.
Horsegirl guitarists Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are back in their hometown of Chicago during winter break from New York University, where they share an apartment with drummer Gigi Reece. Theyāre both in the middle of writing papers. Cheng is working on one about Buckminster Fuller for a city planning class, and Lowenstein is untangling Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmannās short story, āThree Paths to the Lake.ā
āIt was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,ā Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022ās Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiencesātheir first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
āIf the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.āāPenelope Lowenstein
āEveryone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,ā Lowenstein says. āYou rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school togetherāI just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.ā
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilcoās The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ā90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesnāt extinguish the flame, but itās markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bonās presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
āOn the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giantsāsuper minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.āāNora Cheng
āWe had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,ā Cheng says. āI feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilcoās Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.ā
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth personāWelsh artist Cate Le Bonāinto the trioās songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (āJulieā), raw-sounding violin (āIn Twosā), and gamelan tilesācommon in traditional Indonesian musicāto Horsegirlās repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
āI listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, āFuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?āā Lowenstein says. āThat feeling is something we didnāt have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parentsā basement.ā
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. āIt made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,ā she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floydās spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengoās Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes theyāre trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been āin a Jim OāRourke, John Fahey zone.ā
āThereās something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,ā Lowenstein says. āAnd hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doingāas in, the E stringāis kind of mind blowing.ā
āOn the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giantsāsuper minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,ā Cheng adds. āAnd also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].āThis flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowensteinās sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting oneās life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and itās exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
āThereās something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.āāPenelope Lowenstein
āIn your 20s, life moves so fast,ā Lowenstein says. āSo much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, tooāon and on until we're old women.ā
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
Featuring torrefied solid Sitka Spruce tops, mahogany neck, back, and sides, and Fishman Presys VT EQ System, these guitars are designed to deliver quality tone and playability at an affordable price point.
Cort Guitars, acclaimed for creating instruments that exceed in value and quality, introduces the Essence Series. This stunning set of acoustic guitars is designed for musicians looking for the quintessential classic acoustic guitar with fabulous tone all at an exceptional price point. The Essence Series features two distinct body shapes: The Grand Auditorium and the OM Cutaway. Whatever the flavor, the Essence Series has the style to suit.
The Essence-GA-4 is the perfect Grand Auditorium acoustic. Wider than a dreadnought, the Essence-GA-4 features a deep body with a narrower waist and a width of 1 ¾ā (45mm) at the nut. The result is an instrument that is ideal for any number of playing styles: Picking⦠strumming⦠the Essence GA-4 is completely up for the task.
The Essence-OM-4 features a shallower body creating a closer connection to the player allowing for ease of use on stage. With its 1 11/16āth (43mm) nut width, this Orchestra Model is great for fingerpickers or singer/guitarists looking for better body contact for an overall better playing experience.
Both acoustics are topped with a torrefied solid Sitka Spruce top using Cortās ATV process. The ATV process or āAged to Vintageā, āagesā the Spruce top to give it the big and open tone of older, highly-sought-after acoustics. To further enhance those vintage tones, the tops bracing is also made of torrefied spruce. The mahogany neck, back, and sides create a warm, robust midrange and bright highs. A rosewood fingerboard and bridge add for a more balanced sound and sustain. The result is amazing tone at first strum. 18:1 Vintage Open Gear Tuners on the mahogany headstock offer precise tuning with vintage styling. The herringbone rosette & purfling accentuates the aesthetics of these instruments adding to their appeal. Both acoustics come in two choices of finish. Natural Semi-Gloss allows the Sitka spruceās natural beauty to shine through and classic Black Top Semi-Gloss.
A FishmanĀ® Presys VT EQ System is installed inside the body versus other systems that cut into the body to be installed. This means the instrument keeps its natural resonance and acoustic flair. The Presys VT EQ System keeps it simple with only Volume and Tone controls resulting in a true, crisp acoustic sound. Lastly, ElixirĀ® Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze Light .012-.053 Acoustic Strings round out these acoustics. This Number 1 acoustic guitar string delivers consistent performance and extended tone life with phosphor bronze sparkle and warmth. The Essence Series takes all these elements, combines them, and exceeds in playability, looks, and affordability.
Street Price: $449.00
For more information, please visit cortguitars.com.
Cort Essence-GA4 Demo - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Moth Electric's C. regalis overdrive pedal offers massive boost, natural overdrive, and searing distortion for guitar and bass. With active treble and bass controls, clean blend, Smooth/Crunch modes, and true-bypass switching, this USA-made pedal is a versatile addition to any pedalboard.
Adding a new model to their line of overdrives, Moth Electric has released the C. regalis. Equally suited for guitar and bass, the meticulously designed C.regalis is capable of massive boost, natural, singing overdrive, and searing mid-gain distortion. Its six op-amps power a dynamic, crunchy overdrive circuit with a suite of features including:
- Active treble and bass controls that allow for +/- 15db boost and cut. Perfect for tailoring the C. regalis to your instrument and amp.
- A powerful clean blend for introducing either your ampās natural character or another effect into the equation. Allows the C. regalis to become a more transparent overdrive.
- Smooth/Crunch modes, provide a subtle change in feel with āSmoothā increasing sustain and āCrunchā introducing high-order harmonics for additional texture.
The C. regalis offers the following features:
- Bass, Treble, Blend, Volume, Drive controls
- Smooth/Crunch modesā More volume than youāll ever need
- True-bypass switching, top-mounted jacks for easy placement on crowded pedalboards
- 9-volt DC operation with external power supply ā no battery compartment
- Designed and hand-built in the USA using through-hole components
The C. regalis carries a $179.99 price and is available for purchase at mothelectric.com.
For more information, please visit mothelectric.com.