Rearranging his most-famous tracks, performing them on a pre-war Martin guitar, Clapton’s session would shift 26 million copies, pick up three Grammys and ultimately would become a seminal moment for the guitar brand.

It planted the seed for collaboration. Just three years later, Clapton and Martin teamed up for his first signature guitar, based on the vintage 1939 000-42 he played on Unplugged. The rest is history.

Now, Martin is celebrating that history, marking the 30th anniversary of its first Clapton signature models with a pair of Golden Era-inspired acoustics, the 000-EC and 000-42EC 30th Anniversary models.

Officially unveiled on Sunday, 30 March, to coincide with Clapton’s 80th birthday (many happy returns, Slowhand) these high-end acoustic guitars will surely soon be collector’s items. Martin is only making 300 of the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary. The more affordable but still super high-end 000-EC 30th Anniversary will be available until March 2026.

Both share the 000-14th fret body and the same dimensions as Clapton’s pre-war model. There’s the Authentic 1939 neck shape and the 1.69” nut width, the 24.9” scale length. But there are some fundamental differences.

Those with a five-figure guitar budget might want to first check out the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary before they’re all gone. Its $10,999 price tag is eye-watering but the spec would bring you to tears, too.

Here we have all the good stuff; solid Guatemalan rosewood on the back and sides, Adirondack spruce on top. Martin has given a lick of vintage gloss over Antique Toner, letting the wood – and those decorative abalone flourishes on the binding and the rosette do the talking.

That spruce top has scalloped X-pattern bracing just like they did in the Golden Era. This guitar is very easy on the eye. The twinkle of GE 42 Snowflake inlays in abalone on an ebony fingerboard is total class.

But as Martin says, this guitar’s true charm lies in how it plays and how it sounds, and it is designed to accommodate many different styles. “The scalloped Adirondack spruce Golden Era-inspired bracing enhances resonance and projection, ensuring this guitar fills any room with an unmistakably full-bodied sound,” says Martin.

Appropriately, these guitars leave the Martin factory strung with his signature acoustic guitar strings, Clapton’s Choice 12-54 phosphor bronze – and an extra set in the premium, embroidered Harptone guitar case the guitar ships with.

Each of the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary models has a hand-signed paper label, and there’s a certificate of authenticity too.

Now, if your budget does not extend that far, then the marginally less decorative 000-EC 30th Anniversary might be a better bet. At $4,999, however, it is hardly a runaround acoustic. This is serious stuff. The core recipe – its feel and its tone – is similar.

The mahogany neck joins the body with the compound dovetail joint, the X-bracing is scalloped, and so forth. But this has East Indian rosewood on the back and sides, with a solid spruce top, and Clapton’s signature is pre-printed on the label.

We have a regular gloss finish instead of the vintage tint, and the herringbone trim instead of abalone. Some might actually prefer that look. And besides, you still get a COA inside the case, and each guitar is numbered in sequence. Either way, these are special guitars for a special player. For more details, head over to Martin.

These Martins come hot on the heels of the Gibson Custom Shop's Murphy Lab replica of Clapton's “Disraeli Gears” 1958 Les Paul Custom, which was later owned by Albert Lee. It's really two signature guitars in one, and you'll find both Lee and Clapton's signatures on the electric guitar's second pickguard.

The Collection: Kirk Hammett is written by MusicRadar alumnus Chris Vinnicombe and features photography from Ross Halfin, including some deep cuts from Halfin’s archive.

And it features a lot of guitars that Metallica fans – not to mention Fleetwood Mac and Gary Moore fans – will be more than familiar worth. Never mind Hammett, the star of the show here is Greeny, the legendary 1959 Les Paul Standard previously owned by the late Peter Green, then the late Gary Moore, and has been owned by Hammett since 2014.

We say owned but Hammett himself will say that he is just its present custodian – a guitar he describes as “his Excalibur”.

Speaking to the Metallica Report podcast in October 2024, he says he is consistently inspired every time he picks it up and plays it.

“Every day she’s really great to me. I play her every day. Riffs fall out of that guitar pretty much every single day,” he said. “I really feel like that guitar was calling for me and I answered the calling. And once that guitar and me got together, great things started to happen for both of us! It’s a magic piece of wood. It’s blessed! It’s beyond words. I can’t even begin to fully describe the guitar’s effect on me.”

Gibson has released a number of Greeny replicas in recent years, offering it as a Kirk Hammett signature guitar from the Custom Shop’s Murphy Lab, as a standard Gibson USA model, and as a more affordable Epiphone model – and Hammett has said that the Epiphone guitar is his favourite of the production runs.

As with Slash’s 2022 book from Gibson Publishing, The Collection: Kirk Hammett follows Hammett’s appearance on GibsonTV, where brought out some of the rarest and most unique pieces in his collection (a signature ESP KH S-style with an actual theremin!?) to show Gibson’s Mark Agnesi.

And having gathered all those guitars together for the shoot, it made sense for Hammett to sit down with Vinnicombe to talk about them, and for Hammett to get Halfin to shoot them for posterity.

“I’ve worked diligently on this curated collection of vintage and modern guitars for the book,” says Hammett. “I feel the book captures the rich history and artistry behind each of these unique and rare instruments.

"Every picture tells a story and thanks to Ross Halfin and his exceptional photography, every picture in this book is worth a million words! This book could not be possible without the help of Gibson, so I’d like to thank them for making my passion for Greeny, and guitars a reality. I hope all of you enjoy this journey as much as I did.”

This being Hammett, there will be a lot of Flying Vs. Besides Greeny, there will be Les Pauls. And there will be some guitars that have lived a full life before coming into Hammett’s possession. We rarely think of Hammett as an SG player a la Tony Iommi or Angus Young and yet that’s what he was using when Metallica tracked Load.

And here, Hammett reveals that he owns the 1961 SG Custom that John Frusciante used to record the breakdown section of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication cut Otherside – it’s also in the video for Fortune Faded. Better still, he owns Les Paul’s SG Custom, a true unicorn dual-humbucker version in white that Paul appeared with in publicity photos.

There are more doozies where that came from. Vinnicombe says Hammett has “one of the coolest guitar collections on the planet”. It’s not all electric either; Hammett’s 1964 J-180 Everly Brothers acoustic guitar also makes an appearance.

Gibson president and CEO Cesar Gueikian says the project has been years in the making.

“It was a thrill to put this together and it took a village to get it done!” he says. “I hope everyone appreciates the work that went into this book and enjoys every story behind the guitars.”

The Collection: Kirk Hammett is being offered in three hardback editions: Standard (£129/$149), Deluxe (£249/$299) and Custom (£649), the latter two both signed by Hammett.

The Custom Edition is limited to 300 units worldwide and arrives in a presentation box, measuring 19” x 14.5” and has a lenticular cover. Inside there is a framable print of one of Halfin’s portraits of Hammett, and Axe Heaven mini-replica of the Metallica man’s Flying V, plus a guitar pick tin and COA.

The Deluxe Edition ships in a presentation slipcase decorated with pictures of Greeny, inside which you will find an exclusive 33” by 23” A1 poster and COA.

The Collection: Kirk Hammett is available now. See Gibson for more details.

Back once more with a reboot of their popular X Series, Martin continues to bring iconic acoustic guitar designs at accessible price points.

Its dreadnought body shape has been around since 1916, when it was introduced to help guitarists compete with louder instruments in the band. Big and booming, it remains the number one choice for everyone from Neil Young to Jason Isbell to Billy Strings.

But, owning a guitar exactly like the ones these guys have (though an X2E Strings signature model was unveiled at NAMM), is beyond the means of most of us.

Cue the D-X2E. Featuring solid wood elements (top, neck, bridge and fingerboard) and High Pressure Laminate (HPL) back and sides, it promises the classic dreadnought look and sound at a fraction of the price.

While the mere mention of HPL will have purists recoiling in horror, Martin has a solid track record of building good guitars with this stuff, and it champions HPL's ecological credentials and “rugged, take-it-anywhere” durability.

Recently, it has also been working hard to make it look more like “real wood”.

For this iteration of the D-X2E, Martin is offering three “photo finish” tonewood patterns for back and sides: mahogany, Brazilian rosewood, and ziricote burst.

At the risk of stating the obvious, these are purely aesthetic choices and don’t impart any of the tonal qualities associated with these rare and desirable woods.

Our test example has the Brazilian rosewood pattern and a natural spruce top.

It certainly looks pretty convincing, but how does it sound?

Specs

• Price: $699 / £699 / €879
• Made: Made in Mexico
• Body shape: Dreadnought
• Body top: Solid spruce
• Top bracing: Scalloped X-Bracing
• Back & sides: High Pressure Laminate (HPL)
• Neck/shape: Select Hardwood, Martin Performing Artist neck profile with High-Performance Taper (1 3/4" at the nut and 2 1/8" at the 12th fret)
• Scale/length: 25.4" (645mm)
• Nut/width: White corian, 1 3/4'' (44.5mm)
• Fingerboard: Select Hardwood
• Body depth: 4 3/4” (123mm)
• Finish: Natural spruce top with mahogany or Brazilian rosewood effect HPL back and sides or sunburst spruce top with ziricote effect HPL back and sides. All variations have a satin finish.
• Bridge/pins: Select hardwood bridge with white plastic bridge pins.
• Tuning Machines: Satin chrome closed gear
• Electronics: Martin E1 pickup and preamp system with a built-in chromatic tuner and volume, tone, and phase controls
• Weight: 4.6lbs / 2.1kg
• Case: Includes Martin soft-shell case
• Left-handed options: Available
• Contact: Martin Guitar

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

If anyone knows anything about building great quality guitars, it’s Martin. So, even in its lower budget ranges, you’re going to expect exceptional craftsmanship.

Rather than Nazareth, PA, the D-X2E comes from Martin’s Navojoa factory in Mexico, which has been producing guitars for over 30 years now.

With perfectly smooth edges, tidy joints and no visual imperfections to be seen, first impressions are very pleasing.

In keeping with Martin tradition, the top has scalloped X-bracing, and you’re getting a nice slab of solid spruce here. Conversely, the HPL back and sides do have an artificial feel, but that’s to be expected and there’s no doubt they’ve been produced with market leading knowhow.

Aesthetically, efforts have clearly been concentrated on the Brazilian rosewood patterning. Elsewhere, this is a bit of a plain Jane.

While the spruce top has a lovely grain pattern, the hand-rubbed satin finish does little to help the natural details pop. With a thin abalone pattern rosette, standard teardrop pickguard and no decorative binding or purfling, the overall effect is a little bare, but some will appreciate a more minimalist approach.

The soft satin theme continues into hardware, with satin chrome strap buttons and tuning machines – a look you don’t see on many Martin instruments. Operationally, I’ve felt smoother machine heads, but this is a very minor complaint.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★½

“The X Series is made to play,” says Martin. Frankly, it’d be weird if it wasn’t. But it does feel like there have been some concerted efforts to make the experience easier and more enjoyable than ever, particularly for those in the early stages of their playing career.

For a large guitar, you don’t have to wrestle to get comfortable with the D-X2E. Its body design features rounded edges where the top and back meet the sides, meaning that you’re not going to get jabbed in the ribs, armpit or inside the elbow by any pointy corners when you sit down to strum – as can happen with other dreadnoughts.

The Performing Artist neck profile, High-Performance Taper, hand-rubbed finish and a very respectable factory set-up all combine to make for zippy travel around the neck. There’s ample spacing between the strings for fingerpicking and nailing clean chord changes. The spacing here is "refined" (read: increased) on this Remastered model.

Having volume and tone controls concealed within the soundhole is a familiar sight on X Series electro models so the E1 preamp doesn't visually interrupt the guitar's curves, but reaching inside the guitar to make adjustments may still take a bit of getting used to for some players.

The built-in chromatic guitar tuner, also concealed in the soundhole, is bright, responsive and intuitive as could be. It’ll even turn itself off after 90 seconds of inactivity – great news if you're prone to burning through 9V batteries like there’s no tomorrow.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★☆

Martin dreadnoughts are quite probably the most used acoustic guitars in the history of music, so you’re likely to have a good idea of what to expect from any instrument of theirs with a ‘D’ in the name.

From the first strike of a big open E chord, the D-X2E proudly measures up when it comes to volume and projection expectations. It has an impressive amount of resonance, too. Strummed hard and held, it feels as if a single chord might just keep ringing into tomorrow. You can thank the solid spruce top for that.

The overall tone is warm, booming and bassy. While it won’t be the most nuanced choice for delicate fingerpicking styles, you’ll have zero trouble being heard if you’re dishing out the cowboy chords with one of these things, even without amplification.

Plugged in – in this instance through a Marshall AS50D acoustic guitar amp – this guitar sounds like an amplified version of itself, which is a good thing and not always a given with budget or intermediate level electronics.

Significantly, the D-X2E now features Martin’s own E1 acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system. Past X Series guitars have been fitted with Fishman MX/Sonitone systems, which – although perfectly fine – are not renowned for being enormously inspiring. Fishman has also dominated the pickups at the affordable end of the electro-acoustic guitar market for quite some time, making the E1 a welcome point of difference,

Where the MX only had Volume and Tone controls, the E1 also features a Phase switch – a thoughtful addition for anyone who has ever found themselves battling to regain control over feedback in a tricky live situation.

Verdict

Overall, the D-X2E is an impressive instrument. Beyond the fancy HPL patterning, Martin has upped its game in areas that really matter – like playability, comfort and amplified sound.

The nagging question for some will be: Can you hear that the back and sides aren’t made of real wood? Well, yes and no. To be honest, the answer to this question will vary from person to person, depending on their experience and frame of reference.

Sure, in a straight shootout with a D-28, anyone with ears is likely to be able to pinpoint some key differences in complexity and character. But this is missing the point by some distance.

Does the D-X2E sound good? Yes. Will it get the job done? Absolutely.

It’s also worth noting that Martin makes an even more affordable X Series dread – the D-1XE – which has an HPL top as well as HPL back and sides. The D-X2E is going to feel more lively and responsive than this, so for only £/$100 more, I think it’s an investment worth making.

MusicRadar verdict: It’s tough to find serious fault with the D-X2E. Although a bit more personality wouldn’t go amiss, it's comfy to play, built to last and sounds suitably massive. While it might not be the vintage D-28 of your dreams, this is a Martin you can be proud of.

Also try

Hands-on videos

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• Best Martin guitars: Classic tones for all budgets from the famous acoustic guitar brand

Price’s J-45 has a shallower body depth. It also presents a showpony side to the Gibson workhorse. The J-45 is one of Gibson’s more blue-collar acoustic designs, ruggedly handsome; there are not many as easy on the eye as this.

Here it is dressed in in some of the Hummingbird’s livery, courtesy of that Heritage Cherry Sunburst nitro finish, and applying an exquisite decorative touch with a double pickguard.

There's no question that the Margo Price J-45 is a looker with a ‘50s-style double pickguard, a tortoiseshell design replete with red-tailed hawk graphics.

Why red-tailed hawks? Well, because they are a muse to Price.

“Red-tailed hawks have always been symbolic to me,” she says. “I see them everywhere, and I always have, as they are common all over the United States, but to me, they are otherworldly, and they always come to me in my time of need with messages of strength and perseverance.

“Red, as a colour, relates to love, passion, and even anger, matters that we typically would associate with the heart, but if you look closely, the ends of the feathers are dipped in white, and the bird itself has a spiritual nature to them.

“When I’m on long road trips, I look out the window and count them alongside the highway. They pass over me at the most kismet times, reminding me to find strength in my vulnerability and to open up and connect to those around me. I hope this guitar will remind those who play it these lessons as well.”

Price’s J-45 has a solid red spruce top, with traditional hand-scalloped advanced X-bracing under the hood, solid mahogany on the back and sides; multi-ply binding on the top and single-ply on the bottom add a nice aesthetic grace note.

The fingerboard is more utilitarian – a 12” radius piece of rosewood inlaid with MOP dots, seating 20 standard frets, and matching the belly-up bridge.

The nut is bone, measuring 43.8mm, and the scale length is your typical J-45 24.75”. The saddles are bone, too. You’ll find a nice retro touch on the headstock with those Grover cream button strap tuners.

This J-45 will definitely play comfortably for chord work, thanks to a round profile mahogany neck, which joins the body in the time-honoured compound dovetail joint, set with hot hide glue.

Finishing things off, we’ve got an LR Baggs VTC acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system, with controls nested in the soundhole. The 1/4” output jack is integrated into the end-pin design.

Priced at £3,399/$3,999, the Margo Price J-45 is available now. That price includes a hard-shell guitar case. See Gibson's websitefor more details.

It was understandable. This hybrid acoustic look like nothing we had ever seen before – at least, not on the market – applying the 21st-century radicalism of the Abasi Concepts Larada to a hybrid acoustic electric guitar .

In 2022, Abasi had shared a pic of an earlier prototype with seven strings and fanned frets but this prototype was closer to something that we might actually see. “We’re getting close to the finish line,” promised Abasi. Good. Misha Mansoor of Periphery put himself down for one in the comments.

Details have been thin on the ground but in a recent interview with Guitar World, Abasi explained some of the thinking behind it, and what we can expect from a guitar that is being designed to offer an all-new take on the brand’s ergonomics and multi-scale platform.

“It’s for guys who maybe aren’t traditional classical players, but do want a nylon-string guitar for recording and specifically for stage,” says Abasi. “My band Animals As Leaders, we have compositions with nylon guitars, but on stage, a fully resonant traditional classical guitar feeds back. You can’t have a wedge [monitor] at volume. If you got a drum set behind you, it just makes it unusable.”

Some design elements have been weeded out at the testing stage. The Abasi Concepts logo was going to serve as a soundhole – this looks set to go. There are discussions ongoing with regards to bridge design. Abasi says the thinline build and performance were inspired by the MusicRadar-approved Córdoba Stage. “I toured with it and I was like, ‘Man, this thing is actually perfect,’ says Abasi.

Like the Stage, Abasi’s new nylon-string is looking to split the difference between the classic feel of a nylon-string and the electric guitar. Players reared on electric should find it accommodating. Abasi says it is built for performance, with enhanced upper-fret access and the platform for hyper-technical players to cut loose.

“What's really cool is that on a nylon-string guitar, you could never play the 19th fret,” says Abasi. “And I really like that you can sweep pick on this thing, so it gets you the nylon-string sound without the physical limitations of a traditional acoustic instrument.”

According to Abasi, Fishman are working on an acoustic guitar pickup design that delivers more “depth and ambience” than your common or garden variety piezo. “We’re really proud of how this actually sounds like plugged in,” he says.

What he didn’t say was when we will see it. But what this space. When it drops it will be competition for Ibanez’s TOD10N Tim Henson signature guitar that has been the go-to nylon-string of choice for the progressive instrumentalist since its 2022 launch.

In other Abasi Concepts news, the brand has given its Legion Series a Deep Sage makeover, offering the finish on its ēmi and Larada models – and you can get that as an eight-string ($2,199) or seven-string guitar ($2,099).

Specs are typically contemporary: fanned frets, Fishman Fluence Tosin Abasi Humbuckers, basswood bodies, wenge bolt-on necks, ebony fingerboards and locking tuners, and ergonomics to burn. These will be available from 2pm PT today, 7 March. See Abasi Concepts for more.

The Gibson Special acoustics all made in the USA at the company’s Bozeman, Montana facility. The designs are a little more pared back; here we have satin nitrocellulose lacquer, not gloss, and some of the aesthetics have been dialled back.

The Hummingbird, for instance, has single-ply body binding rather than the multi-ply binding you’d ordinarily expect and a simplified – but still decorative – stamped graphic pickguard design.

The idea is that these are pro-quality instruments, high-end acoustic guitars that are accordingly built with solid woods, guitars you would keep a lifetime, and yet are more affordable.

The updates are not all cosmetic. Gibson has given the Hummingbird and J-45 a “concert depth” body that it says gives it a “leaner and tighter” bass response – and also makes them a little more comfortable to play.

Sure, they are not cheap. But at $2,199, the Hummingbird Special considerably cheaper than the $3,999 Standard, and is less than half the price of the $4,599 Hummingbird Standard Rosewood. And the fundamentals are reassuringly familiar.

You will find solid sitka spruce tops as standard, supported by X-pattern scalloped spruce bracing, with solid mahogany used for the back and sides. Necks are utile and join the body with a compound dovetail joint set with hot hide glue.

The fingerboards are all rosewood, 12” as per Gibson’s house style. Bridges are rosewood, too, and there are TUSQ nuts, saddles and bridge pins. The scale length across the range is 24.75”.

All three ship with an L.R. Baggs Element Bronze under-saddle piezo acoustic guitar pickup and preamp, the controls for which are found secreted in the soundhole.

But for all the similarities, these are three quite different guitars, each offering an update on a classic design. The L-00 and J-45 Specials are being offered in Satin Wine Red and Vintage Sunburst.

The Hummingbird Special is resplendent in Satin Wine Red or the more traditional-looking Satin Vintage Cherry Sunburst.

Robi Johns, senior product development manager at Gibson Acoustic, describes them as guitars for all occasions, onstage, in the studio, or keeping you company at home.

“Gibson is very proud to now offer the individual magic of these three authentic and famous Gibson acoustics,” he says. “The Gibson Acoustic Specials arrive in a package that’s simply perfect for songwriting and rehearsing, as well as superior for home recording and live performance.”

The Hummingbird Special is priced £1,899/$2,199, while the Special J-45 and L-00 are priced at £1,699/$1,999, with that price including a premium soft-shell guitar case. For more details, head over to Gibson.

In other Gibson news, the Nashville-based guitar giant has also just launched the Platypus Firebird, a modern-day reproduction of a super-rare transitional Firebird from 1965 that has a non-reversed six-in-line headstock with a silhouette not unlike the Australian mammal it shares its name from.

The grand auditorium acoustic guitar shape, which was first pioneered by Taylor in the ‘90s, has become an exceedingly popular one.

Smaller than a dreadnought and larger than a grand concert, it’s designed to straddle two worlds, appealing to strummers and fingerpickers alike.

Over the years, Cort has produced many iterations of this shape. Their latest is the GA-DAO electro-acoustic, with a layered wood construction featuring the striking veneer of an exotic mahogany alternative, dao.

It comes with a Cort CE304T piezo-type pickup and preamp system, featuring a three-band EQ and built-in LED guitar tuner – everything a budding intermediate player might need to go from sofa to stage.

Cort reckons it’s perfect for “the versatile acoustic player” who wants one guitar to cover many styles. But at well under £300, does the GA-DAO deliver?

Specs

• Price: £269/€349
• Made: Indonesia
• Body shape: Grand auditorium
• Body top: Dao laminate
• Top bracing: X-bracing
• Back & sides: Dao laminate
• Neck/shape: C-shape, Mahogany
• Scale/length: 25.5” (648mm)
• Nut/width: PPS / 1 ¾” (45mm)
• Fingerboard: Laurel
• Body depth: 4 ¼” (107mm) at deepest point
• Finish: Natural Dao (gloss)
• Bridge/pins: Plastic
• Tuning machines: Cort die-cast
• Electronics: Cort CE304T - includes 3-band EQ and built-in LED tuner
• Weight: 5.25 lbs / 2.3kg
• Case: Not included
• Left-handed options: N/A
• Contact: Cort

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

While Cort may not have the cachet of leading American or European brands, it’s known for producing well-built guitars at affordable prices.

Based in South Korea, but with factories in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia – where the GA-DAO is made – Cort's parent brand Cor-Tek manufactures own-brand models alongside contract builds for heavy hitters like Ibanez, Schecter, G&L, Squier, PRS and now Fender.

Given the expertise and equipment at Cort’s disposal, it feels reasonable to expect above-average quality from the GA-DAO.

Upon initial inspection, the test example looks and feels robustly made, with a flawless gloss finish and no obvious imperfections. The overall aesthetic is simple yet refined, with off-white binding, white dot inlays, and an abalone-esque rosette.

Without even a small pickguard to obscure it, the star of the show is the dao wood itself, which has a warm, amber hue and a subtle tiger-like stripe in the grain. It’s a finish that will no doubt stand out against the crowds of spruce-topped acoustics that congregate at open mic nights the world over.

Hardware-wise, the Cort tuning machines work smoothly, and having a jack input that’s separate from the strap button is a nice touch because this can be more durable for gigging musicians.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★☆

The GA-DAO has all the right curves to make for a comfortable body fit, which is great for long practice sessions - whether you’re working on proper posture or curled up on the sofa. The cutaway gives easy access to the 15th fret and beyond, and the satin neck finish will help you glide right on up there.

The factory-set action feels spot on - low enough that there’s no difficulty fretting shapes above open chord territory, but not so low as to cause fret buzz anywhere on the neck.

The guitar also behaves well with a capo on and generous string spacing makes fingerpicking a breeze. As I drop into favourite fingerpicker tunings like DADGAD, open D and even open C, it performs well, with no excessive string slackness or intonation issues.

For those who spend lots of time playing standing up, be prepared to tie your guitar strap to the headstock Bob Dylan style because the GA-DAO - slightly annoyingly - doesn’t feature a strap button on the neck heel. This would have to be fitted by the player or a repair shop.

On the plus side, for low-light gig situations, the LED tuner is very bright and easy to read. It also automatically cuts outgoing signal when engaged – a feature that will no doubt be appreciated by players and audiences alike!

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★½

Because the Grand Auditorium shape has a pronounced shoulder, large lower bout and a nipped-in waist, you’d expect a guitar like this to offer ample bass frequencies, a slight dip in the mid range and some nice sparkly highs. On all fronts, the laminate build GA-DAO conforms, especially when played acoustically.

For open singer-songwriter chords, it offers robust volume and balanced projection. For fingerpicking, distinct treble and bass nuances shine through, making it versatile enough for both.

Amplifying the guitar, however, brings some harsher tonal qualities to the fore. Cort describes its CT304T acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system as delivering “a rich midrange with clear transparent highs”.

With the EQ flat, I trialled it first through an amplifier and then through a PA speaker – via a cheap DI box and a small digital mixer – and found said highs to be so clear and transparent that they were actually a little startling, verging on angry.

In fairness, this is not particularly unusual for electro-acoustics like this that have a piezo pickup under the saddle, as these can have a tendency toward overly bright sounds.

Consequently, the three-band EQ is an essential and much appreciated inclusion. User-friendly and highly responsive, it makes it easy to sculpt warmer, more balanced and ultimately lovely live sounds that are more than acceptable for any open mic night, acoustic band performance or singer-songwriter set.

Verdict

Cort has pitched this as something of an everyman guitar, and while it doesn’t excel in any one area, it’s a solid performer across various styles and settings. In this sense, it delivers on its mission.

Considering its budget-friendly laminate construction, the GA-DAO delivers respectably in areas where competitors in the same space can fall short, boasting a sturdy overall feel with decent resonance and projection. Tonally, particularly when amplified, it is a tad brighter than it is warm – something to keep in mind, especially for strummers.

Where the GA-DAO really wins is in the looks department. If you want to stand out from the crowd, this is a great choice.

MusicRadar verdict: It’s refreshing to find an electro-acoustic option that is distinct – both in looks and sound – from the mahogany and spruce-topped models that dominate the market. For well under £300, the Cort GA-DAO makes for an attractive, highly usable on-stage companion for anyone looking to get out there and play.

Also try

• Cort Gold-OC6 review

That’s right, the Tunerette is a clip-on chromatic headstock tuner that’s designed like a cigarette. No, it’s the sort of thing you would want to give to a 20-a-day smoker who is trying to quit, nor to an impressionable minor. And yes, it has a questionable public health message.

But quite honestly, anyone who doesn’t think smoking is bad for you is for the birds, and whatever gets people hooked on tuning their guitar, cravings first thing in the morning to get up and make sure their Stratocaster is bang in tune, that’s got to be a good thing.

The Tunerette was dreamed up by Dave Hinson. You might recognise the name – Hinson is the owner of Killer Vintage Guitars, in St Louis, is editor of the Vintage Guitar Price Guide, and a contributing editor to the Blue Book of Guitars. He knows his vintage apples.

He doesn’t strike us as the second coming of the Marlboro man but a man in his profession will absolutely consider being in tune as simply good hygiene – a mark of a sound grooming regime and a sign of good character. We would agree.

Hinson got the idea while driving through Oklahoma.

“Inspired by the legends of rock like Clapton, Hendrix, and Van Halen, he envisioned a tuner that not only paid homage to the golden age of guitar but also addressed all the gripes he had with existing headstock tuners,” says Tunerette.

The Tunerette might come in a box that’s like a pack of cigarettes, vintage tobacco marketing is the vibe, but this thing is serious about tuning. It has a bright LED display, is fully rechargeable via USB, and weighs just over an ounce.

“We advise removing any clip-on tuner before a performance,” reads the Tunerette disclaimer. “But with Tunerette if you leave it on, at least you won’t LOOK like an idiot!”

Well, quite. It does not say if it is compatible with Matchless amps but only a fool would try playing Smoke On The Water without sparking this little tuner into action. The Tunerette is available now, priced $49.95. See Tunerette for more details.

Yes, those figures are correct. Unveiled during the new gear fever of NAMM 2025, the Standard range is the most affordable Fender you’ll find and comprises the Strat, HSS Strat and Telecaster, Fender’s O.G. bass guitars, the Precision Bass and Jazz Bass – plus, the pièce de résistance, the Acoustasonic Jazzmaster and Telecaster (again, street price $599).

This minor economic miracle comes thanks to the Big F deepening its decades-old working relationship with Cor-Tek to manufacture the instruments in Indonesia.

Most players will recognise the name Cor-Tek. The South Korean company releases its own guitars under the Cort brand and works with a number of overseas brands. PRS Guitars’ partnership with Cor-Tek on its SE line has been one of the biggest success stories in electric guitar manufacturing.

Joining us over Zoom, Fender’s executive vice president of product, Justin Norvell, now in his 30th year with the company, reminds us that Fender’s partnership with Cor-Tek has similarly yielded high-profile hits for the brand in recent years. The Jim Adkins signature Telecaster, which has always been a huge unit-shifter, is an Indonesian build, so too the Tom DeLonge signature guitars.

Norvell and Cor-Tek go way back. The first product line he managed for Fender was built by them. “I did the Squier ’51 in the Cort factory,” he tells MusicRadar. “We designed it and we drew it, and we did that guitar in Korea at the time. It’s a 40-year plus relationship that we’ve been working together on acoustics, on some amplifiers, on guitars – so a very, very important partner of ours.”

Fender has also released Asian-made guitars under its own name, most notably with its current high-end Japanese-made lineup, but also in the past with the Chinese-made Modern Player range, which was launched in 2011, retailed for around 500 bucks, and besides the price was perhaps most memorable for the return of the cult-classic Marauder.

With the quality of guitars being made out of Fender’s Ensenada facility in Mexico rising all the time – and, accordingly, the price – Norvell says it was time to go all-in with the Indonesian project and revisit what an entry-level Fender guitar looked like.

Sitting somewhere in between Squier’s top-of-the-line Classic Vibe Series and the Player II, that Standard Series guitar looks something like this: the electrics all have poplar bodies, bolt-on maple necks with a satin urethane finish and Modern C profile, a gloss urethane finish on the headstock, 9.5” radius Indian laurel fingerboards, with 21 medium jumbo frets. The pickups are new ceramic winds.

For hardware you get die-cast tuners with hex buttons, with the Strats equipped with a Standard 2-point tremolo with satin chrome steel block saddles, the Tele fitted with a string-through-body bridge with satin chrome saddles.

The big question for players is whether to spend an extra $200 on the Player II model, where you’ll find Alnico V pickups, high-ratio 18:1 ClassicGear tuners, and the choice of maple or rosewood fingerboards with rolled edges, or to go for top-of-the-range Squier, spending circa $429 on a vintage-inspired Classic Vibe model, with those nicotine-yellow stained gloss necks offering a Vintera-esque experience for less than half the price.

It’s a tough call. But maybe Norvell can help. Here he shares the thinking behind the Standard Series, who it’s for, why this is (probably) as cheap as the Acoustasonic is going to get, and why some online critics who are calling it Squier with a different decal on the headstock are getting it all wrong.

What is the elevator pitch for the Standard Series?

“It’s not about a price point or filling a hole in a business term, it’s about, ‘I’m a kid guitar player or someone that wants a second guitar and I don’t wanna like buy super high-end but I want a rock-solid, reliable name brand guitar.’ And we didn’t have that.

“Our company statement is ‘Serving all players at all stages’ and we were kind of falling down on that in some respects. I’ve already watched some of the punditry post-launch where it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s a Squier with a Fender decal on it.’”

Okay, the Reply Guys online are saying things like this is just an Affinity Series Squier guitar with Fender on the headstock. How do you rebut that?

“It was designed from the bottom up. Those guitars are value engineered, I would say; an Affinity Series [model], you are managing costs the whole time, and you’re just like, ‘How do I get it into the right spot while still being as good an instrument, playing as well as it can?’ Affinity Series guitars are awesome.

“This [Standard Series] guitar was designed with the price thing removed, basically, so it was just like, ‘What is the best guitar that we can make with this partner, in this facility, that would be worthy of the Fender name?’

“The guardrails that almost keep something Squier were off, but we were still conscious of what was above it and what was below it and what would make sense. It really was a clean slate, and it was like, ‘Can we do this?’ Geography is a fascinating thing; that it’s controversial, if this guitar had come out of one of our other facilities saying Fender no one would be having this conversation.”

Did you ever think about retiring the Squier brand and making Fender models from beginner to Custom Shop?

“I think everything is a discussion. We’re open enough as a company and we listen enough to think about it. But there’s so much equity in the Squier brand name. There are people that love Squier. There are people that proudly play Squier over Fender. Squier, on its own, is one of the biggest electric guitar brands, so it would be crazy to get rid of that.”

When you say the Standard Series is designed from the bottom up, does that mean that, say, these pickups are an all-new design? What can you tell us about them?

“Because Squier starts to bend more vintage at the top of its line, we wanted to go with something that’s a little more modern, more overwound – distortion-friendly, more aggressive. We had recently gone back to a more vintage Alnico thing on the Player Series so we thought this was one of the ways this could stick out.

“So if this is someone’s first Fender guitar, we are trying to line it up with, ‘What do we think that person might play? Or might want to hear?’ And a ceramic is a really even, diverse kind of pickup to start with. It’s a nice baseline and then you can trade up and out as you develop your tastes for what Alnico pickups bring – roundness, scoop and those different things that people start looking for.”

You mention trading up, the Standard Series models look like they would be good guitars for modding.

“Yeah, it very much can be a base platform for someone to do what Fenders were built to do. Fenders are wide open. Everyone wants to be unique and personalise things, and this is a perfect personalisation platform – for people who have a bunch of guitars and they want a guitar just to get into modding, this is a great step into that realm. There’s nothing too precious about it.”

Sure, and the players who might buy one can mod it as their own playing style evolves.

“We have always welcomed that and I think it’s going to be a great platform. The way people can play jazz, funk, country, punk, metal, anything on a Strat or a Tele, it’s amazing. James Burton to James Root on Teles.”

And Mike Rutherford on a modded beginner’s Bullet Strat.

“A hundred per cent. That’s brilliant. I think Clapton had an Ensenada-made Standard Strat before they became Players that his family bought him, and like they signed it and he plays that in between the Todd Krause Masterbuilt guitars.”

Sometimes it’s good for experienced players to pick up a well put-together beginner electric guitar and have some fun with it.

“The Squier Affinity, I mean, it’s 41mm [body thickness] instead of 45mm. It’s a little sleeker, thinner, lighter. There is a different feeling when you put that on. It can make you play differently. It’s amazing the quality that exists on beginner guitars these days.”

You are a big offset guy and there are no offsets in the Standard Series yet. Might we see them further down the line?

“Yeah, potentially. We just wanted to tailor the offering, keep it tight, don’t make it too big at the beginning. But I would never say never and it’s definitely something that we’ve discussed.”

What does the relationship with Cor-Tek look like in practice? Do you send your luthiers over with the blueprints?

“Yeah, there would be R&D on our side and then that would go over to their side, and then their side would have to R&D it as well to fit their templates, machines, everybody’s standard metric and all the translation that has to occur between the facilities.

“There are several in-person meetings, several sit-downs, virtually back and forth every day, samples coming back and forth, and then we’re there for the proto runs, the pilot runs, all of that stuff – checking that stuff off as it comes off the line and having discussions, making adjustments. It’s very similar to if it was our own facility.”

That Cor-Tek facility has such a good rep that it is a selling point.

“For over 30 years, we have been sending our manufacturing experts over there and helping the factories that we chose to partner with. We would share in best practices. We’ve had had ex-Master Builders like Chris Fleming and Mark Kendrick go out there. [Fender pickup guru] Tim Shaw used to go out there all the time, [chief engineer] Donnie Wade. We’ve had a cavalcade of people that have spent [time there]. This is the culmination of a 40-year partnership.”

You mentioned Indonesian-made signature models. Might we see Standard Series signature models?

“Anything is possible! The goal is for this to seep into the line, that there’s something there [for] all players at all stages, from the [Squier] Sonic Series all the way up to Custom Shop. We have upped quality so much in Ensenada. It’s not just that prices have increased there, what those guitars are today is not what those guitars were 15 years ago. This is the new reality for the product line.”

Was making a Standard Series Acoustasonic the toughest challenge?

“That was super complex. Basically, one of the things that makes that guitar more expensive is the electronics, that DSP technology. There’s a box in there that does great things. And so, how are we going to do this without that? Is there a way to do it with multiple parametric EQs? And other things that we could voice that could get it dialled-in in a way that sounds like it was worthy of the name and the sound quality that we associate with those guitars?

“Also, even the purfling was challenging for us… The factories that we work with over there don’t have the same technology. We had to figure out a lot. That was a ground-up [project]. Apart from the fact of, ‘This is how the body comes together…’, essentially all of the electronics, the pickups – everything – was a complete redesign and that took a lot of time and a lot of effort. But the team that worked on it, it was way better than they hoped for. It has probably come out a little bit later than we’d hoped but we wanted to do it right, not fast.”

This feels like the Acoustasonic finally going mainstream. Is this as cheap as they’ll come?

“I think this is probably as affordable as they will get, for the time being. Maybe as we get learnings about what’s hard, what’s possible, what barriers exist with this. There might be a way to go one more click down but I probably think this is about it.”

When do you know that a new series has been a success?

“There’s sales that occur just from when you launch something and that feels good, but I think staying power, and people, artists, using stuff, especially in iconic ways. This is an interesting business. The Jazzmaster was cool for a minute in the ‘60s, surf music and everything, and then it wasn’t cool again until the ‘90s.

“There are these peaks and valleys in guitardom. There are very famous guitars that weren’t made from 1962 to 1968 – majorly iconic guitars – and that has always been interesting because even when I think that we feel [success], we just need to be always reaching. Even when something isn’t a success, that might make it a cult success about 20 years from now.”

“Success is a relative term. We did a guitar in 2014, the Deluxe Strat Plus, that had the switchable mod cards – failure! But I think we learned something and it was a cool reach. No failure comes without learnings. It’s not a complete answer to your question but overall it’s not just about sales.

“If someone adopts it, and someone’s doing cool stuff with it, when you’re seeing it inspire people, like with the Acoustasonic, when Jack White gravitated right towards it and started doing some really cool stuff with it, asking for modifications. When you see someone really take to something that we’ve done and they’re making new music with it, that’s something that I would call success.”

• The Standard Series is available now. See Fender for more details.

Why, you might ask – what’s wrong with a satin finish on a guitar neck? It’s smooth, right. Some of those glossy necks can gum up on a player, particularly those unfortunate players who turn into Albert Brooks on Broadcast News as soon as the stage lights are on them. With a satin neck, the hand just glides up the fingerboard.

But Marr isn’t having it. In a recent interview with Guitar World, the former Smiths guitarist explained why his new signature Martin guitar has not only seven-strings, with an octave string on the G, it also has an old-school full thickness neck profile and a gloss finish.

“I have to try and talk about the neck without sounding offensive or angry. Satin finishes: why? No need,” he said. “You’re really playing that fast that you need to have a satin neck? Really?”

Marr suggests that the tastes for satin-finish necks fresh from the factory has meant gloss has gone by the wayside, and this is more the pity. That’s how they used to make ‘em. But then, isn’t the satin finish really just a way of replicating that super-smooth worn-in feel that you get on a vintage instrument, acoustic or electric guitar? Sure, but Marr argues – and in jest, don’t write in – you should do the hard work yourself and play the thing.

“Like, a beautiful glossy neck, that was on all the old guitars since time immemorial – your technique is so dazzling, or you’re so uncomfortable putting your hand on that gloss, or you’re so affronted by it, that we’ve had to have years of really bad finishes on necks?” he says. “No need. Wear it down yourself, you lazy sod!”

Or, as Frank Zappa would say, ‘Shut up ’n play yer guitar’.

Accordingly, if you pick up Johnny Marr’s signature Fender Jaguar, or pony up for this stunning new M-7 high-end Martin (or its six-string equivalent), you’ll find gloss nitro lacquer on the neck – which admittedly wears in a little easier than the gloss poly finishes you get on some more affordable models.

From experience, you just have to play those ones a little more before they lose that sheen.

Speaking of Marr’s M-7, it looks looks like the platonic ideal for anyone wanting an acoustic with more harmonic intrigue going on but doesn’t want to commit to the full-on physical realities of a 12-string guitar.

You can read more about it here and get more details over at Martin Guitar. In other Johnny Marr news, the red 1984 Les Paul Standard with Bigsby that he spec'd up with Gibson's Made To Measure programme to replicate the Les Paul he used from circa Meat Is Murder onwards, goes on sale tomorrow (21 February), with 20 of these hand-signed instruments going to support the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The Queen guitarist shared the story behind the guitar’s design, explaining why he prefers his 12-string guitars to be strung in reverse, with the octave and the standard strings swapped around, and he accompanied Brian May Guitars signature artist Arielle onstage for a performance of the Everly Brothers’ So Sad, Love Token from May's 1992 solo album, Back To The Light, before finishing their set with a poignant rendition of Queen’s Love Of My Life.

It was an emotional occasion. Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian made a speech. May's family were there. He spoke of his pride at putting his name to the first ever 12-string version of the SJ-200, and how his planetary design for the pickguard graphic featured the planet Mercury as a tribute to the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. He also revealed that it turns out it is quite difficult to design 8-pointed star inlays out of agoya shell but the luthiers at Bozeman managed it.

And the occasion took May all the way back to when he was beginning on the guitar. As he noted to the crowd, Elvis played one, the Everly Brothers played them, and both were influences on him when he was starting out – a time when May risked suspension from school because the guitar was strictly forbidden.

This was a different time. There were no YouTube lessons in those days. If you wanted learning materials for guitar you had the great Mel Bay and that was it. May didn’t even have that. He had his ear.

“I started off on acoustic, and I was on acoustic for a long time, and all I did was sing and play accompaniment,” he said. “It was a long time before I became clever enough to play what I call single notes. I could hear people doing it on records but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to do it myself.”

He was in good company. None of his friends did either. The instrument might have contraband under official school policy but that didn’t stop him and his friends taking their acoustic guitars on-campus. May and friends build up a “kind of competition” as to see who could develop their playing faster, and shared their progress out of sight of the teachers.

“In the lunch hours, we would hide behind the cycle sheds because it was illegal to have a guitar at my school,” said May. “Seriously, things were very different in those days! Hampton Grammar School, you would get suspended for even having a guitar let alone possessing one at school.

“So behind the cycle sheds, we would hide, and we would play, and go, ‘Hank Marvin’s done this, y’know. And this…’ All these wonderful things were happening. Elvis was happening. Buddy Holly was happening. And we were finding out what they do, how they do it. That’s what we wanna do!”

It worked out in the end for May. He learned guitar without unduly disturbing his academic career, and completed his studies in 2007 with his PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London. And the guitars he played got considerably better over the years.

He modded his first acoustic with a home made pickup before perfecting his craft on the father/son product that brought him his iconic Red Special electric guitar (that got a quick workout during Love Token). And now he has this opulent 12-string – a guitar he described as a “dream come true.

“As soon as I held the guitar, I thought this is what I need,” said May. “It has such presence and such a beautiful breadth of sound. Gibson has done the most beautiful job, it has the lovely solar system on it, including Mercury, but the most important thing is it sounds massive.

“It’s very traditional old-school technology, not made with AI or mechanised in any way. I take fantastic pride in it and I’m very honoured to have worked with Gibson. From the days when I used to gaze enviously at the guitar catalogues, sitting there with my Dad, I wish he was here to see this amazing fusion of the collaboration we’ve made.”

Read more about the Gibson Custom Brian May SJ-200 12-string here. This Vintage Sunburst doozy is available now, priced $7,999 and limited to 100 instruments worldwide. See Gibson for more details.

This limited edition signature guitar really is stunning, an example of the good people of the Bozeman, Montana Custom Shop operating at the peak of their powers. Just look at that headstock and those fingerboard inlays, 8-point stars fashioned from eco-friendly agoya (also known as akoya).

For months, many have speculated – MusicRadar included – as to May’s relationship with Gibson, after he appeared at the launch of the Gibson Garage London alongside Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page. Was a Gibson-made Red Special electric guitar in the works? Well, there still could be.

But with May officially in the Gibson artist family it was just a matter of time before we saw a signature model. This, as it turns out, was borne out of necessity.

“The idea for this guitar came when I needed a 12-String on tour, and the one I was accustomed to wasn’t performing right on stage,” says May. “The guys at Gibson very kindly said, ‘We’ll make you something special that you can use on the tours.’”

And they weren’t wrong. It is not just that this is a high-end acoustic guitar build, featuring a AAA Sitka spruce top, AAA rosewood on the back and sides, and a two-piece AAA maple neck (with a Rounded profile to make those chords feel nice and comfortable and a decorative walnut stringer), but May’s 12-string is reversed in the sense that its heavier strings are strung on top, the octave strings on the bottom, making for quite a different voicing.

Also, that planetary pickguard? That is a design from Dr Brian May himself, referencing his academic background in astrophysics and featuring a tribute to Queen’s late frontman, Freddie Mercury.

“One of the things I asked for was for the octaves to be placed around the other way from where it is normally done, because I like to pick upwards and hear the top notes when I’m playing,” says May. “I like to hear the high octave coming through as then I can play tunes on it. If you look at this guitar, the beauty of it, and the beauty of the sound, and look at the science in this guitar, look how much technology and craftsmanship has gone into this guitar.

“Gibson was able to put the universe on it in a figurative way and the planet Mercury is here, and that is a little nod to a friend of mine that is always with me.”

Gibson is only making 100 of these worldwide. They are accordingly priced for collectors at a cool $7,999. The Brian May SJ-200 12-String ships in a signature hard-shell guitar case, inside which you’ll find a certificate of authenticity and a hand-signed booklet.

Cesar Gueikian, CEO, Gibson, says it is an “absolute privilege” to be working with Brian May.

“Brian’s impact on music and culture is second to none and was a transformational influence on my personal music journey,” says Gueikian. “We are deeply honoured that Brian has trusted Gibson with this SJ-200 12-string guitar, and we are excited to finally bring it to music lovers around the world. Thank you, Brian.”

Other features include a Fishman Matrix acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system. You will be cheered to know that the neck joins the body with a compound dovetail joint, set with hot hide glue. The fingerboard is Indian rosewood, has a 12” radius and seats 20 frets. The guitar has a 25.5” scale length and a bone nut.

It really is an opulent build. That agoya is reprised on the Indian rosewood bridge. The gold Grover Rotomatics are a sight to behold on the headstock.

For more details and pics, head over to Gibson.

Launched in June 2023, with Powers debuting the A-Type hollowbody to select retailers across the US, it is one of the hottest new brands on the market.

These are typical Powers designs, detailed and exacting, with all new electric guitar pickups that incorporate a Faraday cage to kill unwanted noise and hum, a Camshaft tremolo inspired by lap-steel that was machined specifically for the guitar, and playful touches such as whammy bar tips and knobs fashioned from surfboard resin – a nod to Powers’ passion for surfing.

As with the V-Class bracing under the hood of Taylor's top-tier acoustics, some of the A-Type's most intriguing features are not visible to the naked eye – such as the asymmetric fingerboard radius. But it begs the question: why not release these electrics under the Taylor Guitars’ brand?

Taylor has made electrics before. There was the Solidbody lineup of 2007/2008. These were well-received. The refreshed 2012 lineup was impressive, too. In MusicRadar's review of the SolidBody Classic SB1-X, we said "Taylor has truly arrived in the electric guitar business."

These, however, are now discontinued. The only electrics listed on the Taylor site are its hybrid acoustic electric guitar designs, the T5z, which was launched in 2014. As hybrid build goes, the T5z was more electric than acoustic. MusicRadar very much liked the T5z Custom.

But in a new interview with Inc., Powers admitted that he “hit a wall” when thinking about what a new Taylor branded electric guitar would look like.

“The issue wasn’t that the guitars were not good or the ideas weren’t fresh and interesting,” said Powers. “It was because we were forcing some of these ideas into the wrong context. Strong brands like Taylor Guitars have a clear design language: colours, textures, curves, shapes, and the overall aesthetic of the brand. Once that is successful in a marketplace, it can be difficult to step outside of that and find acceptance.”

In a sense, this abandoned Taylor-goes-electric project was a victim of the brand’s success. Taylor’s place as an acoustic brand – one that celebrated its 50th anniversary last year – made it more difficult to innovate with a new electric design.

Powers says even if the prototypes performed well, those who played them couldn’t get past the name on the headstock.

“Players who tried the earliest prototypes would tend to say: ‘It is great. Sounds good. Feels good. Plays good.’ Then they would look at the identifying marks on the guitar, like the quintessential Taylor headstock or brand logo, and sort of wince,” continued Powers. “The experiments did not align with their sense of what was the established identify of the brand even though the thing itself was inherently good. It was too far of a jump.”

Powers says the breakthrough came when Kurt Lustig, who co-founded Taylor Guitars with Bob Taylor in 1974, suggested Powers should simply design an electric guitar that excited him and they could name it after the fact.

Enter, the Powers Electric Guitars A-Type, which definitely does not look like a Taylor guitar nor like anything else we have seen on the market – and that is very much the idea.

You can browse the range at Powers Electric Guitar, and read the full interview with Powers at Inc. It’s a fascinating story about the birth of a brand, and also offers insights into why your favourite guitar company will often have good reasons for not taking a radical departure from its core lineup, or has difficulties when it does.

But all that mojo stuff, and the power of legend? It doesn’t work every time and not on every player. In an interview with Revolver, Opeth frontman/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed that he had recently had the chance to play Kurt Cobain’s “haunted” Martin D-18 at the Martin Museum, Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and even as a Nirvana fan it didn’t strike him as anything special.

“It was very beat up,” said Åkerfeldt. “It didn’t feel that good. There was nothing special about it, other than it had belonged to Kurt.”

Åkerfeldt doesn’t mention it by name but it is most definitely “Grandpa” that he is talking about – a 1953 Martin D-18 that Cobain was given before the touring cycle for Nevermind, which is now one of the star attractions at the Martin Museum.

As the story goes, Nirvana were yet to blow up, and money was tight. Cobain needed an acoustic for their upcoming tour and his friend, the Boston-based indie-folk artist Mary Lou Lord, could help him out, giving him her guitar, Grandpa, for the tour.

Cobain took Grandpa out, the rest was history. Nirvana got big. The guitar was returned to Lord and then Elliott Smith played it when Lord went touring with him.

Åkerfeldt is right. This 1953 D-18 is beat up. That it made it through a Nirvana tour unscathed is a minor miracle in and of itself. The wear and tear on both sides of the soundhole is something you don’t see every day but that’s what happens when it has been played hard by a left-handed guitarist in Cobain and by right-handed guitarists Lord and Smith – not to mention the decades of playing before those two got their hands on it.

That Cobain and Smith died young, some people took on a ghoulish fascination with Grandpa, as though it was cursed. Åkerfeldt was nonplussed by all that.

“Someone told us that guitar was haunted, like people who had that guitar had accidents,” he said. “I’m a Nirvana fan, but it was just a regular guitar to me.”

Åkerfeldt is no stranger to Martin guitars. He started using them with Opeth around the Damnation era, when the Martin replaced his old Seagull acoustic. He used to work in a Stockholm guitar shop that specialised in Martin guitars, making repairs to them, and because the shop was quiet Åkerfeldt would spend his time practising on acoustics.

“I was playing a lot and writing a lot for our second album [Morningrise] and developing my technique as an acoustic guitar player,” he told MusicRadar in 2010. “That’s something that made a lot of difference to me as a songwriter, guitar player and musician overall. The years in that store helped me to develop our sound.”

He might have been unmoved by Cobain’s Grandpa. But he tells Revolver that visiting the Martin HQ was like “visiting the Holy Land” – and there was one Martin he was so old – so valuable – it gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“I played a guitar from the 1800s,” said Åkerfeldt. “I got scared. They held it up to me and I kept backing away. It’s invaluable, you know? I don’t know what the value in money would be, but it’s an artefact. I get nervous around those kinds of things. But I did play it.”

Grandpa is one of the most famous acoustic guitars in the Martin Museum. But how much it would be worth is hard to say.

Cobain’s most famous Martin is the 1959 Martin D-18E that he played on Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged, which in 2020 became the most valuable guitar ever sold at auction. Australian businessman Peter Freedman, owner of Rode Microphones, paid a $6,010,000 for it.

The plight of the live acoustic guitar player is ever present; getting a crowd to quieten down is one thing, actually achieving a pleasing sound from your amplified instrument is quite another. Some nights I still wake to the harrowing memories of plasticky piezo quack in a sparsely populated bar. Because the reality is that the complexities of our acoustic instruments seem ill-suited to the realities of capturing them away from the condenser mics of a studio environment. And yet thankfully innovative designers have persisted and helped us to be heard and sound good.

One of the very best is Lloyd Baggs, whose company LR Baggs has been trusted by pros and weekend warriors alike for 40 years to lead the way in pickups, preamps and pedals for acoustic musicians. But guitars themselves? This seems new. It isn't…

"Most of you know us as a pickup company because that's what we've been doing for the last 40 years or so," Lloyd admitted. "But I don't think too many of you know that I started out in the music business as a luthier, and in fact that's how I got into the pickup business."

Mr Baggs was building guitars in his garage by the mid '70s, even making a guitar for his friend Ry Cooder. This eventually lead to a meeting with Takamine, with the Japanese company supplying pickups for his home builds. But Lloyd's inquisitive mind drove him to look deeper into the design of these pickups and how he could make lighter designs of his own. So his path diverted into that side of the business. But those electro-acoustic design ambitions remained into the '80s, and now the AEG-1 finally allows them to come to fruition on a production model in unexpected ways.

The production AEG-1 isn't being built by Baggs – Lloyd designed and proved the concept over Covid but it's being manufactured via a partnership with Crafter in Korea. A company that's been a customer of Baggs for three decades.

Overseas manufacturing obviously helps keep the asking price down, but this isn't a straightforward build either; the AEG-1 is quite different to anything that's gone before, and Crafter had to go on its own journey to produce it. Aside from the instrument itself, its pickup system is a custom version the Baggs Hi-Fi Duet, already available to buy separately at $449/$489.

It becomes clear that the guitar design isn't simply a mere platform for the latest Baggs system. The combination defies a few traditions in pursuit of the evolution that has typified Baggs as a company. Indeed, there's a sense the aim here is to produce the ultimate stage acoustic guitar.

The top is scalloped X-braced and surrounded by an American poplar plywood rim, with a solid rosewood back for additional resonance. It's pretty thin at 63.5mm, with controls for the preamp system on the top side and a 9-volt battery box on the bottom that sides out.

The patent-applied-for internal structure of the AEG-1 is a key to what I discover about its sounds later. The solid rosewood back is braced, but it doesn't hold the neck stable alone; the AEG-1's plywood rim (machined out of of plywood manufactured in the US) allows the neck to be supported at two points at the guitar's top, with the rest of the top floating free of the neck structure. "Neither the back nor the top need to be responsible for keeping the neck anchored," says Llloyd. "That does two things; it allows us to make the top and the back more sensitive, and the neck is so solid, more energy from the strings is driven into the top instead of being lost in vibration in the neck."

As the back isn't holding the neck, Baggs points out that the solid rosewood can be tuned to reinforce the lower frequencies of the guitar. So the idea is it's a thinner electro-acoustic guitar that doesn't necessarily sound like one.

The mostly filled soundhole acts to help reduce feedback while allowing some of the acoustic sound out. And there's a rubber feedback ring included to fill the remaining space as your stage volume needs dictate. Handy.

With a design in place with resonance as a priority, the Hi-Fi Duet system is used to take full advantange. This can be reached via a rear control cavity where its pickups are fixed to the rear of the bridge plate, either side of Baggs's new alumnium Silo mic. The two sources can be blended via the AEG-1's Mic control with a notch at 50/50. There's also a Volume and Tone rotary control (the latter reduces treble anti-clockwise before midday and increases it the other way), plus a Phase Inversion switch.

Specs

Launch price: $1,599/£/€
Made: Korea
Body top: Engelmann spruce
Top bracing: Scalloped X
Back and sides: Solid Indian rosewood back, composite poplar frame sides
Neck/shape: African mahogany/Slim C
Scale/length: 25-5/8” (651mm)
Frets: 20
Nut/width: Composite, 43mm
String spacing at bridge: 56mm
Fingerboard/radius: Indian rosewood, 16"
Body depth: 63.5mm
Finish: Natural
Bridge/pins: Material
Tuning machines: Closed back
Electronics: Custom HiFi Duet with HiFi Pickups and Silo Microphone
Weight: 6.38lb/ 2.89kg
Case: LR Baggs softshell case
Options: Natural (Engelmann spruce as reviewed), Torrefied Sitka spruce, Sun Burst (Sitka spruce)
Left-handed options: No
Contact: LR Baggs

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

The three initial AEG-1 models all have solid rosewood backs but differ in top wood and finish. Our test guitar features Engelmann spruce in a natural finish, a torrefied Sitka spruce and Tobacco Sunburst in regular Sitka spruce round out the trio.

The thinner body may recall the recent – though non-cutaway – Fender Highway but this is a different guitar in feel. The glossy finish gets an unusual visual frame with the visible plywood layers of the sides – and it's much more appealing than I'm making it read. But, typical of a lot of things in the guitar world, and especially new ideas, it is going to divide opinion.

Lloyd Baggs was inspired by the mid-century plywood furniture of Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen here. I like this idea of plywood layers becoming an aesthetic rather than something to hide away under a colour finish. The poplar composite here is custom-made in the US and is "strong, lightweight, and extremely stable," according to Baggs. "Making it the perfect platform to support the resonant top and back of our guitar.”

This guitar is a break from tradition, clearly, and it looks it but the build quality is of the standard I'd expect from the 40-year reputation of the Baggs name, and a testament to Crafter's partnership.

My only small caveat is the unglossed panel opposite the soundhole on the back that doesn't match any of the other wood tones here. It looks a bit of an afterthought on a guitar that seems very well considered elsewhere – but it will be rarely seen, at least.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★½

If it looks different, the AEG-1 definitely feels like an acoustic to plat. One with a slim body that speeds the bonding experience, but a 16-inch radius Indian rosewood fingerboard and tension from gauge 12 strings make no attempts to enter the hybrid territory of the Acoustasonic world.

The generous body cutaway and inclining carve around the heel of the 4-bolt African mahogany neck does feel enhanced compared to most electro-acoustics, but even with the medium-low action (1.9mm at the low E, 1.6mm at the high E) I think I'd personally prefer a lighter 11 gauge set fitted to take more advantage of it. I tune down half a step to confirm the suspicion. But as ever; horses for courses!

The transitions between standard, flat and then into DADAD I make highlight a huge strength of the AEG-1's structure that Lloyd Baggs has already suggested; it's incredibly stable with tuning. It stays in tune even between stays in its padded case. Boding well for a potential life between home, vans and venues.

The AEG-1 has a very appealing neck; Modern C and a satin finish for the mahogany, comfortable for thumb chords. It's a really comfortable guitar all round, with a weight that's reassuring and a build that feels robust.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

Lloyd Baggs isn't a man for baseless hype – as 40 years being trusted by pros attests. And so it proves here; the AEG-1 doesn't sound acoustically as I expected from such a thin body. The bottom end is deeper than it has any right to be – the rosewood back does indeed do its job well. Don't expect Taylor-esque hi-fi of course, but the sustain is surprising and the character not as compressed as one would expect from this body depth. It's all by design of course.

As I test the AEG-1 through a Line 6 Power Cab at small stage volumes set to flat mode, a Laney A1 Acoustic combo and a Fishman Aura pedal (imaging dialled off) through the new Headrush FRFR Go desktop cab, it soon becomes clear that the Baggs AEG-1 is going to change my expectations in this market. Is this a watershed moment for acoustic-electric guitar? Yes and no.

The no part is only because this is a convincing sell for the Hi-Fi Duet as well as the AEG-1 as a whole – a system you could have fitted to your favourite traditional flat top. But the fact this guitar is designed for the system should not be underestimated. And the result are the best amplified acoustic sounds I've heard to date.

It's tempting to suggest that the ultimate goal of the AEG-1 should be a character and response through a PA that's evocative of a larger-bodied acoustic being captured with a quality condenser. Rich high-end and delicate highs. But any acoustic guitarist who's played with a drummer and even an electric guitar player will know that's not always the optimum goal. You'll need some cut - with a little grit and the enhanced mid weight of an electric. This is where the AEG-1 really impresses. It can cover both needs, and cover them very well indeed.

"It kind of gives you the best of both worlds," noted acclaimed Grammy-winning flat top musician Molly Tuttle, who road-tested the AEG-1 for six months before sharing her thoughts on video. "When you want to play something that sounds like an acoustic but maybe packs the punch of an electric guitar."

She refers to it as "an acoustic guitar on steroids" but in solo scenarios it can do delicacy. It feels different to anything else I've played just sitting alone with it plugged in. My very first impression was that it felt right – an extension of the sound of the guitar. One that belies the thin dimensions that make it such a comfortable instrument, especially for vocalists.

The Tone control's scope and Silo Mic are crucial. You can push the latter's level further because of the soundhole's feedback-reducing design. That means it's much more practical for percussive technique than some blend systems I've encountered, ones that can get risky with feedback at stage volumes.

The low end is one of the biggest revelations here. Lloyd Baggs has achieved something that shouldn't be possible from a guitar with these dimensions, and it's going to persuade people to consider this bold new design.

Unsurprisingly I found myself dialling the mic back to around 30-40% for the kind of sound that I'd have chosen back when I was playing in an acoustic rock four-piece with a Baggs M1A soundhole pickup (oh how I wish I'd had this guitar then!). Then up to around 65%-75% with Tone at around 40% for a darker, more organically 'acoustic' solo fingerstyle folky sound. It feels intuitive – with the sounds many gigging players will have been searching for. I know I've already said it but the AEG-1 feels right in use very quickly.

Verdict

If you regularly play live acoustic gigs I think the price here will be acceptable. In the US that is, where the SRP for this guitar is $1,599. Across the Atlantic, the launch price for the AEG-1 is notably higher at £2,099, which is disappointing and I really hope it's not a sign of things to come for the industry in 2025. Perhaps time will tell with regards to street prices for this particular guitar but it's a significantly higher outlay in Europe at the time of writing.

As it stands, the AEG-1 is a pro-grade live guitar and needs to be tried and considered because it can deliver great things as a trusted workhorse. Baggs and Crafter have got the recipe right. They achieved what they set out to do here. And though I personally prefer the other two finishes to our test Natural Engelman Spruce, it's great to see three distinct choices at launch that will offer their own nuances on the AEG-1 blueprint.

Of course, some players simply won't even consider an acoustic guitar that looks like this. And of course, looks matter – the main facets of acoustic guitar aesthetic have stood the test of time for good reasons. But no matter where you stand, I say try it anyway – it may well sell the Hi-Fi Duet system to you for your own steel string. And even if neither of those options suits you right now, the existence of this guitar and the technology it showcases are surely a cause for pause.

Acoustic guitar players have often moped at the side of the stage casting envious glances at the electric world when it comes to new thrills and envelope-pushing guitar design, but the last few years have seen a shake-up with select models from the likes of Fender, Yamaha and Martin. Now we can add Baggs to the group of trailblazers – Lloyd is still innovating 50 years on from his garage days.

MusicRadar verdict: This is the closest an electro has got to the holy grail of a mic'd acoustic sound with the versatility for a band mix too. The design requires an open mind but Lloyd Baggs has innovated for players again here, and we thank him for it!

Also try

Hands-on videos

Trey Hensley w/ LR Baggs

Molly Tuttle w/ LR Baggs

Gary Roberts

Zach Wish

Trey Hensley w/ LR Baggs

• Best acoustic guitars: Super steel string acoustics for all players and budgets

Murphy Lab acoustics were a long time coming. When they launched in September 2023, two years after the first Murphy Lab electric guitars, we had five in Light Aged treatment from Tom Murphy’s team. They looked like vintage instruments, well looked after, placed in their guitar case right after use. You know the drill; one owner, little old lady, plays her 1942 Banner J-45 at church at the weekend.

The Heavy Aged acoustics bear the scars of a much harder life. They look like they’ve had night after night of action. Pre-War, pre-Beatlemania, pick your poison.

There are five period-classics to choose from, with the new range comprising the 1936 Advanced Jumbo Heavy Aged in Vintage Sunburst, the 1939 SJ-100 Heavy Aged in Faded Vintage Sunburst, the 1942 Banner J-45 Heavy Aged in Vintage Sunburst, the 1960 Hummingbird Heavy Aged in Washed Cherry Sunburst, with a 1963 Country Western Heavy Aged in Smoked Natural.

Robi Johns, senior product development manager at Gibson Acoustic Guitars says the brand has “fully mastered” the artificial ageing process for its guitars, “recreating the vintage sound, guitar feel, and appearance” of a decades-old instrument with forensic detail.

Just look at that J-45, and the distress to the finish around the soundhole, as though it has been strummed to within an inch of its life. The lacquer wear on the neck suggest this theoretical player has spent most of their time fretting cowboy chords around the third fret.

“The Murphy Lab Heavy Aged finish treatment, paired with heavily aged nickel hardware, simulates decades of heavy play wear, giving it the unique character, vibe, and feel of an original example from the Gibson Golden Era,” says Gibson. “Expect a heavy weather-checked finish, heavy belt buckle wear, light arm wear, and light neckwear.”

But it’s important to note that these are not vintage instruments. The finishes may be aged but the build is contemporary. The idea is that you don’t have the same issues as you might have with a vintage model, where time can play havoc with the neck, or where original parts have been swapped out over time.

The J-45 round-shouldered dread is Gibson’s workhorse but at $7,499 this example is a thoroughbred. Your money buys you those aged details, a thermally aged Sitka spruce top, mahogany on the back and side, a Historic profile mahogany neck that joins the body with a compound dovetail joint that’s set with hot hide glue.

This also offers the opportunity for players to pick up a lesser-spotted model, like the Advanced Jumbo, which pairs a thermally aged red spruce top with rosewood on the back and sides. Gibson didn’t make many of them back in the day.

This was an upscale build for the Great Depression. It’s got MOP diamonds and arrows inlay on its rosewood fingerboard, the firestripe pickguard, the Waverley tuners, and the open slot rectangular bridge. It’s priced $7,999.

The SJ-100 is another luxury item from difficult economic times. Another rarity. They only made them between 1939 and ’42. It has a thermally aged red spruce top, mahogany on the back and sides. The dot inlays and firestripe pickguard and the ebony moustache bridge – no MOP inlays here – give it more of a blue collar look than its Super Jumbo siblings. It is priced $8,999.

This release would not be complete without a Hummingbird, the square-shouldered songbird arguably Gibson’s most-loved acoustic. It is finished in a Washed Cherry Sunburst that makes it look like the sun has done much of the ageing work.

This one hues close to the classic recipe (it is a 1960 repro after all) with the Hummingbird pickguard casted as opposed to painted, thermally aged Sitka spruce on top, mahogany on the back and sides, MOP parallelogram inlays… It’ll set you back $7,699.

Finally, we have the Country Western, which was introduced as a Southern Jumbo variant but arrives very much looking like a Hummingbird with its work clothes on. It has the Hummingbird’s square-shouldered shape, the parallelogram inlays, and the aged tortoise pickguard is the same shape – albeit without the graphics – and the top is thermally aged Sitka spruce, mahogany on the back and sides, with a rosewood marquetry strip down the back.

Of course it has buckle rash. You couldn’t imagine a Country Western from 1963 without showing the wear from some dinner-plate sized slab of tin that's been holding someone’s 501s up. It’s priced $7,499.

All of these are available now, shipping in period-correct hardshell guitar cases, inside which you will find a certificate of authenticity. You can check out more specs and details at Gibson.

The guitar was reverse engineered using a 12-string Hootenanny from the Framus Vintage Museum, with the German guitar brand building it to the exact same specifications as the original, right down to the trapeze tailpiece.

It arrives with the blessing from the late Beatle’s family, and with Framus’ promise that it has “the sound you recognize when you hear You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.” Though you’ll have to play the chord progression – G / Dsus4/ Fadd9 etc – yourself.

“We contacted Lennon’s estate and received its cooperation in releasing this guitar,” says Nicolas Wilfer, CEO, Framus. “We are very proud to bring this unique instrument back to life. We are convinced that we will inspire many Beatles fans all over the world with this beautiful acoustic guitar.”

The 2025 Hootenanny reissue offers the 12-string Hootenanny in Vintage Tinted High Polish and Vintage Sunburst Satin, and there is a six-string version too. That is sips in Vintage Sunburst High Polish and Vintage Tinted Satin.

After the money that changed hands for the original auction last May, that 12-string might get you some second looks from Beatles fans; it’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of Lennon’s Hootenanny.

It was easy to under-estimate its value. When it was listed, Julien’s Auctions placed an $800,000 estimate on it. Not exactly beer money. But the guitar that Lennon (and George Harrison) used during the sessions for Help!, and then on Rubber Soul, tracking Norwegian Wood and Girl with it, turned out to be the most expensive Beatles guitar to sell at auction.

It had quite the back story, having been lost for over 50 years then found in the attic.

How could anyone lose a John Lennon guitar? Well, this was the ‘60s. Lennon gave it to Gordon Waller of Peter & Gordon, one of Lennon/McCartney’s production clients, it ended up with Waller’s manager, and spend decades in the attic.

Found in early 2024, its provenance was verified by Beatles gear authority Andy Bubiuk and made its way to auction. Darren Julien of Julien’s Auctions said it was akin to finding a Rembrandt or Picasso.

“It still looks and plays like a dream after having been preserved in an attic for more than 50 years,” he said. “To awaken this sleeping beauty is a sacred honour.”

Well, something of that sacred honour can now be bestowed upon anyone with just over a grand to spare on a stunning retro acoustic. Both versions of the Hootenanny share a lot of design DNA. You’v got solid spruce on top, solid sapele on the back and sides.

These acoustics were originally inspired by classical guitars, so the rosewood fingerboards are flat. The 12-string has a slightly wider nut, measuring 50mm at the zero fret, while the standard six-string measures 44mm.

There are 19 silver nickel frets. Bodies are bound by ivory-and-black binding on the top and ivory back binding. The wooden rosette and black pickguard? These look very cool.

You can see more of them at Framus. Priced €999 and €1099 respectively, they are available now and that price includes a hard-shell guitar case to keep it in good health should you leave it in the attic and forget all about it.

The NAMM show feels like such a whirlwind affair. 1,800,000 square feet of guitar, drum, synth, keyboard, piano, pro audio, brass, woodwind, strings and DJ gear all vying for your attention. To say it's not that easy to spot everything through all the noise is an understatement. However, we scoured the hallowed halls of the Anaheim Convention Center to find the juiciest new releases from the show and pick our favourites to share with you.

Luckily, I was not alone in the pursuit of shiny new guitar things as I was joined by MR’s resident guitar gear nerd, Rob Laing. No strangers to the January Californian sun, with the pair of us clocking in over 20 appearances between us, you can marvel at our step-count and read on for our hot picks from the NAMM Show 2025.

This list isn’t exhaustive by any stretch, but we’ve whittled it down to an easy-to-digest number of new things that we loved during our time at the show and we think you might love them, too. Before we dive into the particulars, there are a couple of trends that we spotted during this year’s event.

Back once again for the renegade masters

On the guitar side of things, the return of the likes of Fender and Gibson were a big deal. The only slight drawback for general attendees was that both brands were hiding behind closed doors – access gained by invite only. And they weren't the only ones, as PRS and ESP were also taking a step back from the masses this year.

For us old media types, the prospect of hassle-free content creation within quieter environs for shooting video was all too good to miss. Don’t get us wrong, throngs of people milling around certainly adds to the vibe, but we’d be lying if we said that we didn’t prefer it this way around.

Fender decided to take exclusivity one step further by hosting just the one event where it could display all the new releases for 2025.

The price is right

Another trend we noticed was the proliferation of entry-level pricing among several brands. Chief of those had to be Fender with the announcement of the new Standard series. Sitting at just above the the entire Squier range, but just below the Player IIs, the Standard brings the Fender entry-point to a wider market.

Read the full rundown of the Fender Standard range

Following in a similar vein is Fender group brand Jackson with the revival of the Surfcaster, an offset that we think we will be a big hit for the Southern Californian guitar-maker. Three models will hit the shops starting with the extremely affordable, Poplar-bodied JS Series Surfcaster at just $249.99/£269, with six and seven-string versions of the X-series model also available from $549.99/£669.

Baggs of tone

Not strictly a NAMM Show exclusive, but LR Baggs was on hand to show off its first proper guitar release in the flesh, the AEG-1. Having finally seen it in the wild for the first time, we had to add it to our list of favourites. The AEG-1 is probably the best plugged-in-sounding acoustic guitar out there right now.

A bold statement, but the AEG-1 backs this up with a HiFi Duet electronics system that features bridge plate pickups alongside a WiFi Duet preamp, and this is paired with a Silo microphone alongside Volume, Mix and Tone controls, a Phase switch, mic trim adjust, and a battery level gauge. We can honestly say that LR Baggs has nailed it.

Check out all the details of the AEG-1

Cometh the hour, cometh the Rockman

When you think of that classic 80’s rock tone, you’re probably thinking of the Rockman. This was the ubiquitous arena rock sound that made superstars out of a fair few bands during that era. If you’re struggling, then point your music streaming service to Def Leppard’s Hysteria and you’re pretty much in the sweet spot.

The Rockman, could be classed as one of the first, if not the first amp sim/preamp, the grandfather to a huge market of preamps and modellers that we see today. And it’s Boston guitarist and prolific inventor, Tom Scholz, who we can thank for this little blue gem. The original Rockman Distortion Generator has been distilled into a small pedal by MXR and it encapsulates all the charm of the original and doesn’t fail to put a smile on your face as you rip through some 80’s riffage.

Return of the King

It can’t be a NAMM with a revival of an old marque, just look at Behringer’s latest efforts in the world of vintage synths, then we had the Jackson Surfcaster and MXR Rockman X100 and now we have an all-American legend reimagined for 2025 in the form of the Tone King Imperial pedal.

Despite the heavy noise levels on the show floor, we could tell from the first listen that this pedal is special and perfectly encapsulates the original. The best, though, has to be the fact that what is a high-end amp, costing around the $3k mark now in a far more affordable chassis will only set you back $599

Reinventing the wheel

The Circle Guitar from Circle Instruments is an engineering marvel, where seeing and hearing have to be believing. The concept is simple, what would a guitar sound like if you could endlessly strum the strings? It’s a concept that has progressed and evolved to what we saw at the show and it’s far from the finished article. Quite interestingly, the plan is to license the technology and develop it further. However, in its current form, the plan is to build and sell a very small number of models that will cost you just short of £10k.

At its heart, Circle Guitar features a wheel that is controlled by Ableton Live. The modular active pickups are created by Cycfi, while the main wheel mechanism houses magnetic plectrums, spaced out evenly, with the plan to develop the wheel with some sort of rail system that would allow for free placement of the plectrums. The guitar body is made of poplar, the neck is maple strengthened with two titanium rods and crafted by Manson Guitar Works.

Lay the hammer down

DigiTech’s pitch-shifting technology has worked its way into yet another dive-bombing tool, but this time you have even more tools at your disposal.

Perhaps our pick of the bunch would be the addition of the sequencer. You can sequence patterns of up to five for even more pitched craziness. The speed in which the sequences can be played can be turned up high enough to sound almost chiptune-like, whilst slowing things down will deliver more recognisable arpeggios.

There are two octaves up and two octaves down to choose from and the pedal also features a lift option, much like the Drop pedal, but in the other direction. Switching from one octave to another can be ramped, much like the Ricochet, or instantaneously.

Hammer On is coming soon and is expected to hit stores around late February, or early March for $279.

The Travel Spruce shares much of the same specs as the its mahogany topped sibling – a guitar that you may well have seen in your, err, travels.

You may well have heard it, too, not least because of the Travel Mahogany’s arched-back body that is designed to help give this little acoustic more volume, projection and a fuller sound than you could reasonably expect of a 569mm short-scale instrument like this.

All those same dimensions are present and correct on the Travel Spruce. It, too, has the open-pore satin finish, the single-ply black pickguard with the Guild logo inlaid in gold. You will find the distinctive G shield logo on the headstock. You will find everything you need from a travel guitar and nothing you don’t. After all the golden rule is always to travel light.

Guild has used rosewood used for the fingerboard and bridge and gone with the classic tonewood cocktail for instruments at this price point; we have a layered spruce top giving it plenty of top-end information, with mahogany on the back and sides.

That said, there are no onboard electronics, so if you want to play amplified you’ll need to get yourself an acoustic guitar pickup and mount it yourself.

But played around the campfire, by the beach, up in the mountains? Guild promises a “warm and rich tone with a silky high end”.

The fingerboard is inlaid with pearloid dots, and there are ABS side markers to help you navigate. Heck, you might get lost when backpacking across Yellowstone Park but at least the fingerboard is easier to navigate.

You’ll find Guild Vintage 16 open-gear tuners on the headstock, finished in all-black, and it a cowboy chord-friendly C profile neck that measures 22mm at the 1st fret and 23mm at the 9th. The fingerboard has a 16” radius, 19 frets, while the nut width is a wholly uncontroversial 43mm.

Nick Beach, Guild’s product manager of fretted instruments, says the Travel Spruce is designed to be just that – a guitar you can take anywhere.

“Their compact size and light weight make them ultra-portable,” he says. “Their arched-back design results in a big sound with greatly increased sustain and projection.”

And it’s not just their size that makes them portable. Guild’s travel acoustics ship with a padded gig bag. The Travel Spruce is priced $249 street. Check out more details over at Guild.

As with Fender’s newly launched Standard Series of electric guitars, these new Acoustasonic Standard Telecasters and Jazzmasters are priced $599, and are a considerable signal of intent from the gear giant. Not only are these the most affordable Acoustasonics on the market, it is further evidence that the acoustic-electric hybrid has officially gone mainstream. This was a day some thought might never happen.

Fender tested the water for the Acoustasonic concept in 2010 with a chambered ash-bodied Telecaster that featured both magnetic and under-saddle transducer, before revealing the redesigned Acoustasonic Telecaster in 2019, complete with “donut” soundhole or Stringed Instrument Resonance System (SIRS), launching the model as we know it today.

This radical fusion of electric guitar playability and acoustic guitar design, the super-versatile electronics, the fact that the Telecaster was now effectively refashioned as an acoustic guitar, this was not for the purist. But such was its effectiveness, the concept was soon expanded. There was a Stratocaster, a Jazzmaster too.

In 2021, the Mexican-built Player Series Acoustasonic was launched and retailed for just over a grand. There were all-mahogany versions.

In August 2024, FINNEAS and Fender teamed up for the first-ever signature Acoustasonic. And now? Well, now you can get an Acoustic for $599 it is a guitar that beginner and intermediate players might gravitate towards – and who knows how that will shape how we play the instrument in the future.

As with its more upscale siblings before it, the Standard Acoustasonic presents you with that hybrid feel and sound, with analogue electronics courtesy of Fender’s collaboration with Fishman.

You’ll find a magnetic Acoustasonic Shawbucker electric guitar pickup and an under-saddle Piezo, both hooked up to a Blend control, allowing you to mix and match acoustic Piezo tones and more traditional electric tones to taste, and there’s a master volume control too.

Bodies are fully chambered, with a fully-braced solid Sitka spruce soundboard, nyatoh body, nyatoh necks. The necks are fashioned into a Modern Deep C profile and are bolted to the body. Fender has finished this in satin urethane. And we have rosewood; 12” radius rosewood fingerboards and matching asymmetric bridges.

Both models are available in Black, Aged Natural and Honey Burst, and they look like a chip off the old block.

Priced £549/$599, they are available to pre-order now from retailers and will ship in April. For more details, head over to Fender.

For those looking for a high-end acoustic guitar that offers a contemporary reimagining of a pre-war model, there is the Billy Strings D-28.

It is built for bluegrass, with a shorter 25” scale length that Martin says is all about reducing string tension “for fast, intricate playing and expressive bends – perfectly suited for Billy’s rapid-fire licks”.

For the rest of us with a little less in the war chest (the pre-war chest?), there’s the Billy Strings D-X2E, which shares the same shorter scale length as its more upscale counterpart, and pairs a sold spruce top with a Brazilian rosewood pattern HPL (high-pressure laminate) on the back and sides.

When Martin approached strings, there was no question which model he wanted to work on. It had to be a D-28.

“If you think of just the word ‘guitar,’ I think of a Martin D-28,” says Billy. “Some people might think of a Stratocaster or a Les Paul, but to me, it’s just so American – it’s like baseball or something.

“They all have this overall thing that is ‘the Martin sound,’ and that is the sound that has captivated bluegrass guitarists for as long as it’s been around – and every other genre as well. But specifically, these Dreadnought guitars for bluegrass music – you gotta have one.”

String’s D-28 has a few other updates to give it a bit more zip, with a wider nut and a Modified Low Oval neck shape. It pairs solid spruce with solid east Indian rosewood on the back and sides and the build is top-shelf, with nickel enclosed gear tuners (a Martin exclusive), ebony fingerboard with abalone inlay, herringbone trim, aged white binding and lacquer on the top to nail the look.

It could be anyone’s dream acoustic. But Strings wanted an affordable option, and the D-X2E is that. This acoustic guitar is under $/£1,000 but it has the same neck shape, the custom nut width to give you a similar kind of ride.

The Grammy-winning songwriter hopes it presents a young up and coming player with their first serious acoustic to learn on.

“There’s so many kids out there that really want to learn how to pick, and they need access to a good instrument that they don't have to take out a loan for,” says Strings. “That was important to me – to make sure that there was a guitar that people could get their hands on. To have a Martin that you can actually acquire and learn how to pick on... I mean, that’s like the first one I got, and it’s great. It’s a fully badass guitar.”

It also has Martin E1 pickup and preamp and onboard guitar tuner. Priced $899, the Billy Strings D-X2E is available now. His D-28 is $3,799. See Martin Guitar for more details.

Out of nowhere, popularised by Phoebe Bridgers – and a legions of Tik Tok guitarists with elastic bands wrapped around their strings for a similarly muted effect – the rubber-bridge guitar presented a new sound for indie-folk and alt-rock players to get creative with.

Orangewood duly launched the Juniper, a $395 parlour-sized acoustic guitar that sold out and was a smash hit, with its Jim Dandy-esque aesthetic and that tone from the rail-style electric guitar pickup at the top of the soundhole. It was a great acoustic guitar for under $/£500.

The Juniper was no gimmick; it sounded great, but Orangewood has made a number of improvements to the design that make the Juniper II a more serious instrument. Orangewood says Juniper II is “a more versatile and professional instrument for those who are looking for the unique rubber bridge sound”.

The headline upgrade is the pickup. After testing a number of different magnetic pickups for the soundhole Orangewood decided on the Seymour Duncan Hot Rails, a single-coil sized humbucker you would more commonly see on a hotrodded Fender Stratocaster.

Furthermore, there is a coil-splitter switch, giving you full-fat humbucker and single-coil sounds, and there are volume and tone controls, too.

Orangewood also added a baritone version, which super-sizes the scale to 27” and modestly enlarges the body to a non-cutaway Grand Concert shape. This sounds like it could be a lot of fun with some spring reverb and a tube amp.

Both arrive with similar builds, with the choice of solid spruce or mahogany tops, and layered sapele on the back and sides. There is reinforced non-scalloped X-pattern bracing under the soundboard. Both versions just presume that you will not be trying to get those digits right up to the summit of the fingerboard, with the necks joining the body at the 12th fret.

Rubber-bridge guitars might be a 21st-century trend but these look mid 20th century at most, like pristine vintage foundlings plucked from a pawnshop and pimped up for the modern player. Just look at 'em; you’ve got over-sized dot inlays, a diamond trapeze tailpiece and Grover open-gear tuners.

Even the pickup controls are from yesteryear – those cupcake-style knobs you might see on an old Fender amp. They look pretty neat, matching the pickguards and adding a bit of contrast to the finishes.

The Juniper II ships in a gig bag and with a set of Ernie Ball flatwound acoustic guitar strings because flatwounds make much more sense on a guitar that’s all about giving acoustic tone a different timbre.

Priced $645, the Juniper II will be available from February. See Orangewood Guitars for more details.

As with a lot of things in the world of guitars, there isn't one correct answer. But we need to understand what substances perform different functions for our fretboards before we can experience the satisfaction of seeing and feeling them at their best.

Firstly, there are two main types of fingerboard wood; finish and unfinished. An unfinished fretboard has no protective lacquer over the wood and examples include rosewood, pau ferro, laurel, walnut and ebony.

Finished fretboards tend to be maple – though unsealed maple 'boards do exist. The finished type will only need cleaning and no conditioning because they have a thin lacquer that acts as the protective layer to keep things like sweat from seeping into the wood.

So before you condition a guitar's unfinished fingerboard, you need to clean it first. And a seemingly unlikely substance is good as a starting point.

1. Naphtha is a cleanser

Guitar techs first recommended Naphtha (petroleum distillate and most commonly referred to as lighter fluid) to me and I was initially confused. Surely a flammable substance and wood are a hazardous pairing?

It can clean finger oils out of your wood by breaking them down before it evaporates. This process will often make your unfinished dark fretboard wood look dry and even slightly opaque after application to work its magic. Don't worry – it's not a conditioner and this is supposed to happen. It's simply removing the foreign bodies in your 'board before you use an oil conditioner to rehydrate it.

It's also a safe body cleaner for nitrocellulose finishes when used sparingly – and like rubbing alcohol, it's good for removing residue from stickers that you might have regretted customising your guitar with.

2. Lemon oil isn't what you might think it is

Lemon oil is what comes up most frequently when the subject of fretboard care is mentioned. Some people even advise against using it. But if you are using it, is it a cleaner or a conditioner? Taylor Guitars co-founder Bob Taylor suggests it's both.

"I’d have no worries about using lemon oil on my fretboard," he stated in a Taylor Q&A with regards to acoustic guitars. "It’s safe. Use it only on the unfinished wood like the fretboard and bridge. The wood can dry out over time, and an oil like this, or linseed oil, or even mineral oil, can protect the wood and beautify it as well.

"Don’t overdo it," added Taylor. "Once a fretboard has been oiled a few times, you can slow down the frequency. The nice thing about lemon oil is that it cleans while it oils, so it won’t build up as easily, but be sparing. I don’t think your fretboard will need oiling more than twice a year, and eventually, once a year."

But a lot of the confusion around guitar lemon oil is due to assumptions about what it actually is. Despite the name, most guitar lemon oil is actualy often more mineral oil with less actual lemon oil than you'd expect. It's more for scent.

So it's actually mineral oil that's the more effective conditioner. This helps to break up the kind of unwanted oils from our hands, for the cloth to wipe away.

I like to do a clean, then add a little more on a second sweep over for a little conditioning – removing any excess with the cloth. And if you notice a guitar lemon oil that's actually yellow coloured, it's because artificial colouring has been used. This can actually help enhance your fretboard's "warm tone", as Gibson Master Luthier Jim DeCola points out in the video above.

3. Other alternatives are available for cleaning and conditioning

Aside from lemon oil, some of the big names in guitar accessories have their own takes on the ideal recipe for fretboard conditioner. MusicNomad F-One Oil is a cleaner and conditioner to be used on unfinished fretboards. It uses natural seed and tree oils and it smells nice too, I have to say!

Elsewhere, Daddario, Taylor, PRS and Dunlop all have their own takes on fretboard conditioning oil too.

4. Pick the right cloth for the job

In my article on how to clean your guitar, I pointed out why two different types of cloth are good for specific jobs when it comes to applying polishes and creams to the guitar. And this idea extends to the fretboard.

You only need a small dab of oil on each fret, then use a microfibre short pile lint-free cloth to move it around the surface of the fretboard without the cloth absorbing too much, too soon and before the oil can seep into the unfinished wood. Then use a different part of the cloth to remove any excess oil after a couple of minutes.

5. Don't forget your toothbrush!

Using your cloth to get into the edges of the frets and clean where grime can gather usually does the job, but for fingerboards that have been neglected for a while (and might be due a fret polish as the next step in a proper spring clean), a clean toothbrush can help with a little oil applied to it.

6. Maple needs love too

Finished (sealed) maple fingerboards don't need conditioning but are still due a clean every free months. Use your clean microfibre cloth with guitar cleaner to wipe away any grime from the 'board that may shorten the life of your strings.

I like to use MusicNomad's Guitar Detailer, because it can also be used on satin and matte body finishes too, plus its anti-static formula helps to repel dust and is has UV protectants to help sun damage for those summer days when your guitar is sitting on the stand.

• For more information on MusicNomad guitar maintenance and cleaning products, check out musicnomadcare.com, Thomann and Sweetwater.

These acoustics are so metal there is even a seven-string. That’s right, a seven-string acoustic guitar. You don’t see them every day. Well, we saw one quite recently, come to think of it; Martin’s Johnny Marr signature guitar has seven-strings, but that was an octave G, so it doesn’t count. But the AEG721 Blackout is a seven-string in the style of the Ibanez Iron Label series, with the low B (or A if you like).

Will the Iron Label series translate to the acoustic format? Well, looks wise, it does. These are kind of classy, muted, all three cutaway bodies, and there are different body shapes mean that all three offering something a little bit different despite being dressed in matte black and all having a similar build.

Across the board they have spruce tops and sapele on the back and sides. There is a “Comfort Grip” three-piece nyatoh neck on the AEG721 and AEWC621, an okoume neck on the more affordable Talman-bodied double cutaway TCY621.

Both the AEG721 and AEWC621 feature Fishman’s S-core acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system while the TCY621 has Ibanez’s proprietary AEQ-2T preamp system with an undersaddle piezo, which you would expect for just £/$249 street. It does, however, have an onboard guitar tuner, which is almost always a good idea.

The AEG721 and AEWC621 have Macassar ebony fingerboards and bridges, while the TCY621 has the more budget-friendly purpleheart, aka amaranth. Retailing at £359/$399, you’d expect a more higher-end spec on the AEG721 and AEWC621, and that’s how it plays out.

The die-cast tuners have a high-ratio 18:1 ratio. These also benefit from having a balanced XLR output as well as your typical 1/4” output, so you could send this directly to the pa speakers, making open mic night that bit easier. Or, as the finishes suggest, saving more space on stage for the high-gain guitar amp of your choosing.

For more details, head over to Ibanez. In other Ibanez news, the Japanese guitar giant launched its new AZ Standard series, offering the tricked-out yet affordable S-style with HSS or dual-humbucker configurations.

The AZ Standard is available with a dual-humbucker or HSS electric guitar pickup configuration. Ibanez doesn’t forget its core demographic in its description of the AZ Standard, promising “all the staples the Ibanez brand is famous for, such as fast necks, floating trems, and high-octane distortion.” And it makes good on those claims.

Necks are fashioned from a deep caramel-coloured roasted maple, bolted to the body, and whittled down to a series exclusive profile that measures just 20.5mm deep at the 1st fret, 22.5mm at the 12th – and you can bet they will feel smooth.

The T106 tremolo bridge might not be as flamboyant as the Floyd Rose – it's not for extreme divebombing – but it is fully adjustable and a solid piece of hardware. There are locking tuners, too, so if you do go hard on the whammy bar it should stay stable.

Those Ibanez Modern Custom humbuckers have a high-output ceramic design and are voiced for high-gain scenarios. The single-coils are Alnico V. But there’s a lot more than meets the eye.

These are not your common or garden variety S-styles. The dual-humbucker model presents players with 10 different core tones thanks to its dyna-MIX10 switching system and alter switch. The HSS model’s dyna-MIX9 system presents you with nine. Either way you’re covered for metal, hard-rock, shred, fusion, funk, pop… Whatever you might want from a hotrodded S-style.

Choosing between them might be the tough part. Bear in mind the HSS model has a switching configuration that combines both single-coils in series for a simulated humbucker sound.

The dyna-MIX and alter switch setup operates much like any modern Strat-inspired guitar. You have a five-way pickup selector switch and then the alter switch for selecting the other wiring options. It is a clever and simple way of getting more tone options out of the pickups.

As for the fundamentals, both guitars have solid alder bodies topped with flame maple. Both have a 25.5” scale, with 12” radius jatoba fretboards seating 24 extra-jumbo stainless steel frets. The neck heels are neatly sculpted for upper-fret access.

Ibanez has given the HSS version a pearloid multi-play pickguard. It has not given it a catchy name – it is officially called the AZ22S1F. The dual-humbucker model is the AZ24S1F. Yes, once more the factory cat has walked over the keyboard and named the models. Don’t ever change, Ibanez. We love you just as you are even if those names really do confuse us.

You can get the AZ22S1F (the HSS model) in Transparent Black Sunburst or Transparent Turquoise Burst.

The AZ24S1F is offered in Transparent Black Sunburst, Violin Sunburst and Transparent Turquoise Burst. If you prefer a more muted aesthetic it’s worth noting it doesn’t have a pickguard.

Ibanez expects these to retail at $549 street. See Ibanez for more details.

Use our acoustic guitar chord charts - from basic open chords to the daddy of altered tunings and many points between - to build your musical vocabulary and hone your own voice on the acoustic guitar.

Open chords

If you've recently starting playing guitar you’ve probably already tried some of the most common open chords (so called because they include un-fretted or ‘open’ strings), such as C, A and Em.

If you’ve got the basics covered, the variations shown here should inspire you with some new sounds without being too much of a challenge to play. Em7 and Cadd9 are widely used, Em9 and A6sus2 are rarer - and both have a lush, bittersweet sound.

We've worked all four chords into a simple strummed sequence for you, but we recommend experimenting with using them in your own chord progressions.

Sus chords

The two most important chord types in music are major and minor: generally, major chords sound bright and happy; minor chords sound dark and sad.

Sus chords are a special kind of chord that are neither major nor minor and, with their neutral character, they can inject sparkle and movement into otherwise simple chord progressions.

Have a go at these shapes and try alternating between the sus chords and more basic major and minor chords.

Sus chords nearly always sound good when played before a major or minor chord that uses the same root note, Bsus4 to B, or Asus4 to A, for example.

Blues chords

In blues ‘dominant’ 7 chords (A7 or D7 for example) are more common than basic major, minor and sus chords.

The A7, D7 and E9 shapes shown here are all you need for a 12-bar blues improv in the key of A. A13 and E7#9 have an edgier sound and work in jazz just as well as blues.

Bm7 is just the ticket for a moody minor blues; if you improvise around this chord, try using the D7 shape four frets higher to create a Bm7 and F#7 progression.

We've played this blues line fingerstyle and added in a few single notes and string mutes (marked X) between the chords for a sparse bluesy feel.

Mid-neck open chords

You already know your open chords, right? We’re talking about C, A, G, E, D and their minor variants at the headstock end of the fretboard.

Well, adapting and moving those shapes around the neck with one, two or even more strings kept open is a great way to create new chords and new sounds. Try out the chords we’ve chosen for you and then experiment by moving the shapes around the fretboard.

The rich sounds here are the effect of droning open strings and the wide intervals between fretted notes and open strings. There’s a lot of mileage in this simple approach. Experiment by moving these shapes around the fretboard.

DADGAD tuning

It's the daddy of altered tunings, favoured by singer-songwriters and folky fingerpickers alike.

Sure, new tunings can be a challenge as you learn the relationships between the ‘repositioned’ notes. But it also means you’ll be surprised, and hopefully inspired, by what you play, and DADGAD is surely unrivalled for its sheer user-friendliness.

The chords shown here should be enough to get you started, but experimentation is the name of the game.

It's good to experiment with arpeggios and explore other notes around the chords you know. This fingerstyle arpeggio idea is essentially just a D and G chord sequence.

CGCGCD tuning

A staple Celtic tuning, open Csus2 tuning (CGCGCD) is the lesser known cousin of the Dsus4 tuning of DADGAD.

Providing excellent scope for drone-like strumming and deep, resonant bass notes, we struggle to see why this tuning doesn’t share the popularity of DADGAD (although you may need a set of heavy-gauge strings to reach those lower notes). Try moving the C chord around the fretboard for instant, rich chord-melody ideas.

The shape we’ve used in bars 1 and 2 can be moved up and down the fretboard and it sounds great in nearly every position. If you only learn one shape in CGCGCD, make it this one.

Check out more guitar lessons

Bonamassa was sparing with the details. He didn’t give us much to work with, except a couple of photos on his Instagram account, including a peek inside the soundhole to confirm the model name. “Look out!! Coming in hot! What an honour of a lifetime!!” writes Bonamassa.

From this vantage point, it looks a lot like his latest signature guitar with the Nazareth, PA brand, the replica of his 1941 000-45 that was unveiled in November. Again, that looks like Adirondack spruce on the top. There is the faux tortoiseshell pickguard, and a generous splash of abalone detail on the purfling, rosette and the “Style 45” snowflake inlays on the fingerboard. The fingerboard and bridge are ebony.

That, too, was what you would call a unicorn. It still had the original ticket on it when Bonamassa handed it to Martin’s luthiers for reference. It also had quite the story behind it, with the sale of this pre-War rarity allowing a woman to keep her home.

“I don’t collect guitars, I collect stories,” said Bonamassa. “I don’t collect instruments because I want a deal on them. I want to collect instruments because I want to help a family out of financial trouble, and they have this one item that could be sold for lots of money... It was the last thing of value that she had, so it saved her house, and I got a wonderful guitar and a hell of a story.”

That 1941 reproduction retailed at a cool $19,999, but collectors will surely have to dig a bit deeper on this forthcoming model. You will find Guatemalan rosewood on Bonamassa's 1941 000-45; swapping that out for Brazilian rosewood – which for many players it is the ultimate acoustic guitar tonewood – is a not going to come cheap. Brazilian rosewood has all but been consigned to the history books, only rarely popping up when a company has found existing stocks of it.

Once upon a time that’s what you found on Martin acoustics, pre-CBS era Fender, and on Gibson fingerboards – both electric guitars and acoustics. Owing to its scarcity, Martin stopped using it in 1969.

In 1992, it was added to CITES and was only allowed to be used if it had already been harvested before then or proven that it had fallen naturally. A lot of paperwork was and is needed to prove it, and players need to be extra careful if considering touring with an instrument with Brazilian rosewood on it.

Will we see this Joe Bonamassa Martin at NAMM 2025? It might be too early for an official launch but if you are visiting Anaheim in January, check out the Martin stand. The prototype might be on show. For more details on Joe Bonamassa’s 1941 000-45, see Martin.

And this thing really is small. Just look at the picture below of the Pica series lined up alongside each other. All but the most crowded pedalboards would have space for this little guy.

As you’d expect from EHX, the Pico series is accessibly priced at $137 street and is packing a few surprises.

Somehow, the New York-based guitar effects pedal specialist has managed to squeeze four knobs on here, with controls for Loop Level setting the output level of your loops, while Dry Level adjusts the output level of the dry signal coming from your instrument. It should be as easy as pie finding a useable mix between your loop and your guitar’s signal.

The Loop dial, meanwhile, is indented so you can cycle through loops 1 to 11. If the memory slot has a loop the little (everything is little) MEM LED glows orange.

Another cool feature regards overdubs. When the Pico 360+ is in Overdub mode, turn the Overdub dial to control the output volume of previously recorded loops, or even set up the unit as a long echo delay pedal.

But the control was designed for people to get creative with loops beyond laying down a foundational rhythm and playing over it. EHX plants the soundscaping suggestion, so perhaps pair it with some fuzz, delay and reverb and see where that takes you.

There are also some super-practical features, like user-assigned Overdub/Playback order so that you can change the mode after your loop – choose Overdub for layering on more sounds, Playback to use that loop as your accompaniment.

Furthermore, you can smooth out transitions by setting a fade out time for your loops between one and 10 seconds.

This being a mini pedal, the footswitch has to do a lot of work; press it for loop record, playback and overdub; hold it down for undo, redo and erase functions. Another LED at the top of the pedal lets you know whether you are recording, playing or in overdub mode.

In terms of its technical bona fides, you've got quote/unquote high quality, uncompressed audio, with 24-bit A/D/A, 44.1kHz Sample Rate.

The Pico 360+ Looper is powered by a 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply (no room for a battery), will draw 100mA, and it is available now.

For more details, see Electro-Harmonix.

Buying a quality acoustic guitar under 500 bucks has never been easier but ina sense, it has never been tougher – there is just so much choice.

Option paralysis is real. But Cort has to be in the conversation, and the MR500F-CED cutaway dreadnought and its more compact orchestra-sized sibling, the L100OCF-CED, both offer something fresh from the usual sitka/mahogany tonewood cocktail.

Confusingly, these are listed in different series; the L100OCF-CED is part of the smaller-bodied Luce series. The MR500F-CED from is an MR series model, which is vaguely described as “instruments of the highest build quality with traditional design and modern features”.

Nonetheless, they’re definitely twins, both arriving similarly – and immaculately – dressed with that solid-colour finish on top, ivory pickguards and binding with black purfling adding some high-contrast detail, with a circle of ivory on the rosette tying it all together.

The backs and sides are layered mahogany. The neck is mahogany, too. The natural satin finish here is a nice contrast to the body’s top. Cort says the Ivory pickguards are a nod to vintage acoustic aesthetics, a bit like those mid ‘30s Gibson L-00s. We don’t have rosewood fingerboards, not at this price.

Cort has gone for an ovangkol, which matches the bridge and seats 20 frets. The scale is 25.5”. Both guitars are fitted with die-cast tuners and a PPS nut, and are ready for open mic night with a Fishman Presys VT and S-Core acoustic guitar pickup and preamp system. You will find the controls for these nested inside the soundhole.

There are subtle differences. Expect a bit more midrange boom from the MR500F-CED, and a slightly tighter spacing at the nut. It measures 43mm while the L100OCF-CED has a 45mm nut, perhaps a better bet for fingerstyle players. The L100OCF-CED’s smaller body should lend it some sweetness.

As Cort notes, Cedar is lesser spotted for this kind of money. “Often reserved for nylon stringed instruments or high-end, hand-crafted steel strings, cedar topped guitars bring warmth and resonance to production models at an attractive price point,” it says.

Certainly, we can think of some cedar-topped Lowden high-end acoustic guitars that would be many players’ idea of a dream guitar – see the Lowden WL-25 for example – so it is nice to see it on a sub-$500 instrument.

The L100OCF-CED and MR500F-CED are available now. Head over to Cort Guitars for more pics and specs.

It’s called the CNR System Active, and its a bolt-on neck joint innovation that promises a “consistently optimal neck setup” no matter the environmental conditions, and it allows players to make easy adjustments to the truss rod and to string height – as in, a turn of the screw easy, a setup in seconds.

All you need is a 5mm adjustable Allen wrench, and the Allen key that’s included with the guitar. Set it up to taste and then the system is designed to compensate for changes in humidity and temperature to keep the guitar setup.

“With the CNR System Active, your guitar will always feel and play exactly the way you want,” says Petr Furch in the promo bumf. Furthermore, Furch sees this as a win for online retailers, effectively deskilling the acoustic setup process, taking the risk out of neck adjustments, increasing consumer confidence when buying online (your setup should similarly be resistant to travel conditions when the guitar is shipped).

It is a bold claim. But let’s look at how this works. At the heart of the CNR System Active design is the Expansion Element, a block of solid wood secured by an adjustable screw at the neck heel. This screw is accessible via the soundhole. This Expansion Element block sympathetically expands and contracts with the soundboard as it in response to changes in humidity, maintaining the correct neck angle.

“This movement is then transferred to automatically adjust the neck angle, ensuring consistent string action,” says Furch. “It was designed to work in harmony with the instrument, so players no longer need to worry about fluctuating playability due to weather changes.”

The new design features an update on the L-shaped alloy supports of the older CNR system to strengthen the heel-to-fingerboard structure and transfer string tension to the Expansion Element. “The updated L-shaped structure is now 60mm longer and 45 per cent stronger, significantly enhancing neck stability and optimising the transfer of string tension,” says Furch.

The two-way truss rod is easily adjustable, again, via the soundhole, and neck relief is supported by the truss rod’s carbon fibre casing. An eccentric screw is positioned above the Expansion Element to secure the lateral position of the neck, and there is an Expansion gap that allows for neck angle movement, adjusting for humidity.

See the diagram below for a cross-section of what this looks like inside the instrument. Furch says there is no audible difference in the tone of the instrument.

“Despite the significant improvements in playability, we naturally had concerns about how the system might impact the sound,” says Furch. “Introducing an expansion gap behind the heel could theoretically affect resonance. However, the tension of the strings and the transfer of acoustic waves primarily occur in the upper part of the neck. We ensured that resonance is channelled effectively through this area, particularly beneath the fretboard.”

The big question is when will this neck system be available on Furch acoustics? It has thus far only been available on the 2024 Limited Edition Dc-LR, available direct from the Furch site, priced from €3,499. Petr Furch says they are in the process of rolling it out across all guitar in their lineup.

“All new Furch guitars, starting with a Blue Gc-CM unit with serial number 126,202, and above, are equipped with this system,” he says. “After years of research and testing, we are thrilled to bring this technology to our customers, allowing them to experience even more performance from their Furch guitars, whether on stage, in the studio, or at home.”

For more details, head over to Furch Guitars.

It was a tall order. Not only would Chalamet have to look like a young Bob Dylan, he had to sound like him, too.

Speaking to the Gibson Gazette, executive music producer Baxter says it was all about the details, not just in using period-correct guitars but having them set-up just as Dylan would have back in the day.

The production demanded aged acoustic guitars. It needed aged acoustic guitar strings, too, because it’s not as though Dylan rocked up to the Greenwich Village folk scene with a tin of Fast-Fret and a fresh pack of 80/20 bronze.

“A lot of the time it was about how we get the guitar to sound almost worse, in a way,” said Baxter. “For most of the songs, you need old, dead strings for sure, or else it does not sound right. And a lot of times on these recordings there’s just a sort of dead quality to the guitar. It’s not super-resonant.

“That’s not to say it’s not good; there’s a really cool feeling to a guitar when it’s dead in that way. You can attack it differently. It sort of emotes differently. But recreating that was a challenge.”

Dylanologists will be paying close attention. So too vintage acoustic buffs. We all know what can happen to vintage acoustics on a film set.

During the shoot for Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 western The Hateful Eight, Kurt Russell famously smashed a holy grail Martin parlour acoustic. It was 145 years young, on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum, and it was meant to be swapped out for a double.

Dylan was no Pete Townshend. He was no Kurt Russell. He sublimated his anger in verse. But even so, you can’t take chances. Gibson supplied a pair of replica J-50s to stand in for Dylan’s 1947 original. One of which is pictured at the top of the page.

Robi Johns, senior product development manager, Gibson Acoustic Guitars, lent his considerable expertise to the production. In a sense, the story of Gibson's acoustics and their place in music history is being told as Dylan's story unfolds.

“As many Gibson acoustic guitars played a timely role in American music history our supportive mission was to carefully select the Gibson acoustics that Bob Dylan chose to play during his powerful presence in the 1960s,” said Johns. “To achieve this with historical accuracy, we also recreated a few of Bob’s acoustic guitars for the timeframe depicted in the movie."

“Those guitars were great, and they got even better over time,” said Baxter. “We had those two on set and used them for a lot of the recordings. We had those two on set and used them for a lot of the recordings. We really did try to follow the progression of his guitars; we wanted to honour that.

“A little less than halfway through the film, we switched to a Nick Lucas Special, which Gibson provided as well. It’s a very different guitar to the J-50, a much smaller body, almost parlour-style.”

Gibson also sent a few J-45 round-shouldered dreadnoughts, one of which Baxter would keep in an open tuning, using a bit of tape to deaden the sound a little. It would be a useful pinch-hitter.

All of these guitars were set up with aged strings and ready to play. Chalamet and the rest of the cast had to perform this early Dylan material and it had to sound convincing, which meant it had to occasionally sound like a work in progress. Baxter says they learned it a little too well at times. This is the story of Dylan coming of age as an artist; Baxted needed Chalamet and co to be a little rough around the ages.

“It feels like he’s creating in the moment as you don’t want to over-rehearse for some of these scenes,” says Baxter. “For example, there’s a Blowin’ in the Wind duet in the movie between Bob and Joan Baez [played by Monica Barbaro], which is one of the many unique duets that we put together that there’s no real analogue for.

“What if these two people were in a room together, and they played this song? What would have happened? We didn’t really want to rehearse it with the two of them together too much, if at all. When we finally did it on set, there was that first-time rawness to it.”

Baxter had an abundance of source material to draw upon. He had Dylan’s recorded work. There is archive footage. But having access to the original multi-track recordings gave him an understanding of how to engineer the recordings, and once more how to give the sound that lived-in quality. He had some microphones for recording, Neumann tube mics, nice stuff. A little too nice.

“If you put them in front of a guitar, it sounds incredible – it could be on a pop song today – but that’s not the sound!” said Baxter. Again, he had to find something to deaden them with.

When we see Chalamet playing live, Baxter assures us he really is playing live, like when he, as Dylan, takes receipt of Johnny Cash’s SJ-200, the super jumbo again supplied by Gibson and takes to the stage. “That’s Timmy live on set, really singing and really playing that guitar,” said Baxter.

From 19 December through January, visitors to the Gibson Garage in Nashville will be able to view some of these guitars for themselves.

If you are of a mind to buy one of them, well, Gibson has curated a collection of these high-end acoustic guitars. There’s a catch, though. You’ll have to age the strings yourself. A Complete Unknown: The Collection can be viewed at Gibson.

A Complete Unknown opens on 25 December in the US, 17 January in the UK and Ireland.

It is not the first time the Animals As Leaders guitarist has demoed a nylon-string prototype of his groundbreaking Larada model. In 2022 he showcased a 7-string with a fanned fret build, volume and tone pots on the body’s top.

In that time, however, the design has evolved. Abasi says we won't have to wait too long before it is released. “We’re still finalising the design,” he explained. “This one is a prototype. We’re getting close to the finish line tho!”

If so, Abasi can count on a few pre-orders. Misha Mansoor of Periphery being one of them. “Lemme get dat,” commented Mansoor. Sure, replies Abasi, in exchange for that Surfcaster offset that Jackson has made Mansoor, and is looking very much like it could be his next Jackson signature guitar.

Abasi is not above getting excited himself. Wait until the end of the video, he says. And there you have it, the risks of playing an extended-range guitar in a domestic setting are laid bare; Abasi knocks his coffee over, the precious final sip all over the rug.

This really is a tease. There are no spec details, and silhouetted against the sun, we can’t make out too many details – it’s even hard to tell if the guitar has seven strings or eight. But it has a thinline body, 24 frets, and it sounds sweet.

One of the most interesting things about progressive guitar’s adoption of the nylon-string is how it brings guitar tone and technique full circle, with our 21st-century trailblazers recontextualising an art-form that was established in 19th century by O.G. classical guitar players like Francisco Tárrega, and the flamenco styles that were pioneered by Antonio de Torres then ultimately popularised in the post-war era by Paco de Lucia.

And to that, today's players are applying the know-how and influences that have cropped up along the way. Animals As Leaders is something very different early classical music but listening to Abasi playing a snippet from Another Year on this Abasi Concept prototype, it’s like a pop-cultural wormhole has been opened, and we’re all invited to step through it.

Polyphia can take some of the credit for opening up that wormhole, too. Watching Tim Henson and Scott LePage deploy their Ibanez cutaway nylon-strings in the Playing God video, 45 million views on YouTube and counting, has had a seismic impact on contemporary guitar. Ibanez subsequently released its TOD10N Tim Henson signature guitar.

It remains to be seen whether the Henson model does for the nylon-string what Steve Vai’s JEM did for high-performance electric guitar but for a new generation of players, that sort of naturally compressed attack of a nylon-string, its feel and precision, presents a new dynamic to complement their low-end adventures in extended-range metal guitar.

Not that it’s easy to mix the two. LePage told MusicRadar in 2022 that he was not sure how they would ultimately perform a track like Chimera, which has both eight-string guitar and nylon-string. Not only that, LePage downtuned the eight-string’s lowest string a half-step during the take.

“We were recording and I said, ‘I want this note! Why the fuck not? Let’s just do it real quick. It’s probably still possible,’” he said. “But then Tim wrote all of his nylon-string stuff to it, so there are parts where there is nylon guitar, and then there is parts where there is distorted eight-string electric guitar. If we ever do play that one, I am very curious to see how we end up making it work

What happens next is going to be fascinating, and we’ll bring you news as and when Abasi Concepts releases this. You can browse the current range at Abasi Concepts. In October, Abasi and Ernie Ball Music Man unveiled a limited edition version of his Kaizen signature model in a Galium finish and it was possibly the coolest guitar we have seen in this or any other year.

All three bear the hallmarks of legendary British luthier Patrick James Eggle, and arrive in a gloss Onyx Black finish, with the natural maple of the forearm rest matched by maple binding on the body’s top and bottom.

Faith describes them as “the ultimate ‘stage guitars,’ with workhorse reliability yet maximum performance capability” and the guitars’ acoustic guitar pickup, Fishman’s Ink Body, system is a big reason why.

This is a system that a belt-and-braces approach to capturing your sound. There is an undersaddle piezo pickup and a body sensor, and you can blend the signals of both to find a tone that suits your style.

“This not only elevates the amplified sound to incredible new heights but also allows for greater note expression whether playing chords or complex fingerstyle pieces,” says Faith.

It also should make it easier for percussive players to find their amplified tone, giving them control of how much of that bridge-plate mounted body sensor they want in the signal. Nobody should want for controls here. You will find controls for Body, Brillianace, Notch filter, three-band EQ and guitar tuner function all mounted on the guitar’s shoulder.

Vegan players will also like there. There’s no abalone or MOP anywhere near it. Faith has opted for figured maple instead. And there’s no hot hide glue to set the neck. The neck joins the body with a bolt-on design from Eggle, Hey, even if you enjoy a hamburger of a Friday night, it looks good against that Onyx Black finish.

As for the fundamentals, all three have solid spruce tops, solid mahogany on the back and sides. The bracing has been hand-scalloped from quarter-sawn Spruce, a pattern developed by Patrick James Eggle,

Elsewhere, Faith has used Macassan ebony for the fingerboard and bridge, and there is a set of Grover Rotomatic tuners on the headstock.

Faith is offering these new all-solid cutaway acoustics as the OM/auditorium-sized Venus (£1,259), the Neptune baby jumbo (£1259) and as the Neptune 12-string guitar (£1389).

As we've come to expect from Faith Guitars, these are all very sensibly priced considering their all-solid builds and the spec – and they ship in a hardshell guitar case.

The Eclipse series is available now. See Faith Guitars for more details.

They look the bee’s knees. The CLG is a auditorium-style cutaway acoustic electric guitar that is available with solid spruce on top, solid rosewood on the back and sides, or with solid spruce and layered rosewood on the CLG-70SR CE NAT and CLG-70SR CE SBK.

The armrest is sapele mahogany. The CLO is your regular figure-of-eight OM shape, which again is offered with a choice of an all-solid spruce/rosewood build, or with layered rosewood on the CLO-70SR NAT and CLO-70SR SBK models for a more affordable alternative.

But truth be told, this being Harley Benton the pricing is typically on-point. You’ll pay £309/$390 for the CLG-70ASR CE with the solid-build and black top. That’s not bad at all.

Both models are offered with the choice of a natural top or black – the back comes with a natural finish as standard. It might be tough to choose; both finish options photograph well.

A lot of the specs are the same across the board. Rosewood is a recurring them. The fingerboards are rosewood. The bridges are rosewood (the pins are ebony and with mahogany inserts). The veneers on the headstocks are rosewood.

Harley Benton does shake things up for one of the series biggest selling points, that armrest. It is sapele mahogany. It, again, looks the part, but just as importantly it offers your forearm a comfortable pivot point as you rest it there when playing.

All models in the series come equipped with a Fishman PSY II preamp system so you’re ready for open-mic night. This crowd-pleasing spec continues with the nato neck, which is carved into a C profile. Another nice touch from a spec POV is the gold open-back tuners with black buttons. They look cool and have a 16:1 ratio.

These new Harley Benton guitars all have a 25.6” (649mm) scale length, 20 frets, bone nuts and bone saddles, and look like late contenders for the best acoustic guitars under $/£500 you’ll see this year.

The CLO and CLG series are available now, exclusively through Thomann. The CLG-70ASR CE in Natural is priced £292/$369. With its layered rosewood back and sides the CLG-70SR CE in Natural comes in a little cheaper at £208/$263, £225/$284 for the black-topped version.

Meanwhile, the black-topped CLO-70ASR with the all-solid build is priced £267/$337, and £250/$316 for the Natural model, while its layered rosewood siblings come in at £183/$231 and £166/$209 respectively.

For more details, head over to Harley Benton.

I've always thought when the time and budget was right to buy my acoustic for life, it would be around the $1,000 mark. And from those three brands, that's actually asking for a lot. Or… it was. Because Thomann just entered the chat with an absolutely incredible Taylor deal that I think should be getting a lot more attention online.

When people ask me, 'I want to buy a really good electro acoustic guitar, what should I look at? 'I always say, 'Taylor American Dream'. They are Taylor's most accessible USA guitars, but don't feel compromised. For the money, I think they offer one of the very best experience for sound and build in their price range you can get and buyers should use them as a benchmark in their shopping. But that was when they were $1,700+ guitars. Thomann is now offering the Taylor American Dream AD22e SEB for £1,179/$1,222.

That's a USA-made Taylor Grand Concert guitar with V-class bracing, solid mahogany top, solid sapele back and sides and a Shaded Edge Burst finish at a price I never thought I'd see it at.

It even comes in the excellent quality Taylor Aero Case. And it's ready for shows with Taylor's Expression System 2.

I'm a big fan of the smaller Grand Concert size, compared to a dreadnought and jumbo. This feels and plays like a guitar for songwriters – it's just a little more comfortable to sit and stand with, in my experience.

I also love the more vintage vibe of the Shaded Edge Burst – if you're coming from the school of thought that Taylor can't compare with the longer history Gibson and Martin have with its aesthetics, this is the kind of guitar that can change your mind. I'd choose this over a natural finish and a cutaway for the heritage looks every time too.

And it's not the only American Dream bargain Thomann is offering too – or the cheapest!

We spotted the Sunburst Grand Theater AD11e above for just £1,175 – a model Andertons is charging £1,499 for at the time of writing. And for left-handed players, Thomann has the sleek AD17 Blacktop for just £1,099.

Check out Thomann's full range of Taylor American Dream guitars.

• Thomann Black Friday deals 2024

The new cutaway models include the Hummingbird Studio EC, Standard EC, and Standard Rosewood EC, and present the Gibson songbird in an all-new light. No question, all three instruments are high-end acoustic guitars, fresh out of Gibson’s acoustic facility in Bozeman, Montana.

Keith Richards, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift… Anyone who is anyone has picked one a Hummingbird at some point, and the songs have tumbled out of it.

It is one of the world’s most-loved acoustic guitars for a reason, and a dream instrument for generations of players. But one thing the Hummingbird isn’t big on was upper-fret access. That’s fine if everything you need can be found between frets 1 and 14 and believe the symmetrical figure-of-eight shape of the acoustic cannot be improved upon.

And yet some players need those frets up the dusty end – especially bluegrass virtuosos whose fiddle tunes see them scale the fingerboard as a matter of course. That’s where the new cutaway Hummingbirds might have the evolutionary advantage on their forebears.

The Hummingbird Studio EC, retailing at £2,599/$2,999 is the most affordable of the three, presenting the classic Sitka spruce top and mahogany bodied Hummingbird in a satin nitro finish, with an LR Baggs Element Bronze system to make it stage ready.

You’ll find the acoustic guitar pickup and preamp controls in the soundhole and that Sitka spruce soundboard braced with Gibson’s 1930s Wide-X top bracing.

Now here’s where Gibson remixes the menu for this Studio model. The Round SlimTaper neck should have an unfamiliar feel but it is carved from mahogany substitute utile.

We also have a 16” radius rosewood fingerboard instead of the more commonly found 12”, all to make string bending easier. Hey, Gibson has made that cutaway for a reason; it wants you to play some leads on this.

But don’t worry. It still has the MOP parallelogram inlays counting out the 20 frets.It also has a decorative pickguard with graphics specific to the Studio model. Gibson is offering this in an exquisite Tri-burst finish, which looks the part with that multi-ply binding on the top.

The Hummingbird Standard EC is more classic. This reverts back to the mahogany neck and the high-gloss nitrocellulose finish and is offered in Heritage Cherry Sunburst and in Ebony as a Gibson exclusive (grab it online or in-person at the Gibson Garage in Nashville or London).

While it has the same rounded SlimTaper as the Studio, the rosewood fingerboard has a more conventional 12” radius. The electronics have been upgraded to LR Baggs’ superlative VTC system. Again, controls are mounted discretely insight the soundhole. The Hummingbird Standard EC is priced £3,399/$3,999.

Details surrounding Trump's official involvement in this new merchandising venture are typically opaque. The Trump Guitars website says that is a “veteran-owned” company with a master luthier consulting. That would rule Trump out on both counts. But he is front and centre in the marketing, putting his name to a range of guitars, and quite literally in the case of a signature series that retails for $10,000.

The company offers a range of bolt-on singlecut electrics and acoustics with “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” pearl inlays on the fingerboard and “45” inlaid on the headstock and they look just as good/bad as you would imagine.

The Gold Bless The USA series comprises a cutaway dreadnought with a “high quality distressed American Flag design” and a dreadnought in natural finish.

The American Eagle series is a variation on the theme, adding what looks like an bald eagle (and blood?) to the guitar’s top. It is hard to tell. This finish is also available on an electric single-cut that retails for $1,500.

Some of the listings pictures on the website are digitally rendered “for illustration purposes only” so perhaps the design will change. These are numbered and limited to 1,000 instruments.

Now, it might surprise some to learn that these are not made in the USA. But the website’s FAQs address this, explaining everything you need to know about the guitars’ provenance.

“All of the guitars featured on GetTrumpGuitars.com were custom designed and developed by a Veteran owned company with the help of a master luthier,” it says. “These guitars have been manufactured by multiple providers and include parts/features that are both domestic and international. This is standard with most guitar manufacturers.”

Okay, that’s that all cleared up. Specs are thin on the ground. But the God Bless The USA dreadnought acoustic guitar is listed as having a solid spruce top with walnut on the back and sides. There is abalone purfling because we haven't suffered enough.

There is also a Presidential series available in goldtop, black and red finishes, with “DONALD J. TRUMP” inlaid on the fretboard, and a Signature Edition that looks very much like the American Eagle series but with Trump’s signature on them, and limited to 275 units, they retail at $10,500 for the electric, $10,000 for the acoustic.

Whether you are looking to add a travel-sized acoustic to your collection for holidays or need a reliable workhorse for open mics, getting the highly popular BT-1 for free is an incredible offer. And if a smaller guitar isn’t right for you, there’s sure to be someone in your life who would love it - perhaps a young learner or even a colleague you can surprise with their best gift of the year.

The 300 and 400 series guitars are some of Taylor’s most beloved models, offering something for a wide range of players. One standout for me is the Taylor 414ce-R. With its classic combination of a solid Sitka spruce top and rosewood back and sides, this guitar is a knockout. With beautiful resonance and an action that a baby could play, there’s a lot to love about this guitar. And talking about babies, getting a BT-1 Baby Taylor for free alongside the 414ce-R is an offer that is hard to resist.

The Builder’s Edition is also part of the promotion, with models like the 324ce standing out. As the flagship of Taylor’s eco-conscious Urban Wood Initiative, the 324ce is crafted from wood sourced from urban trees in California. We found that, despite its unconventional sourcing, the 324ce delivers everything you expect from a Taylor - rich, resonant tone, exceptional playability, incredibly well balanced and fantastic build quality. The smooth, flawless edges make it a true joy to play and you can feel better about the impact your purchase has on the planet.

Also, If you’re looking to celebrate Taylor’s 50th golden jubilee, there are commemorative models included in the Buy One, Get One promotion. The 50th Anniversary 314ce is a fantastic choice if you are after something a bit more unique. Its special edition torrefied spruce top enhances resonance and dynamic range and coupling it with V-Class bracing, you have a room-filling tone. For those situations that require something a bit quieter, grab that free BT-1 Baby Taylor you’ll get with your purchase.

Yamaha is definitely a familiar name in acoustic guitar, but what's the TransAcoustic part all about?

The reality of being a guitarist is most of us are playing on our own most of the time, so it's understandable we seek inspiration to motivate us in those moments. When Yamaha introduced the first TransAcoustic models in 2016 with the LL-TA dreadnought and LS-TA concert, it wanted us to explore how an acoustic guitar can inspire us in new ways – by adding effects that don't need an amp or pedal to be heard.

No amp? How does that work?

TransAcoustic technology was something the Japanese company first developed with pianos a decade ago, before turning their attention to acoustic guitar to offer reverb and chorus effects that you can dial in with controls on guitar, and hear them applied to your playing. It's best for Yamaha to explain the science here…

"Two actuators installed on the inner surface of the guitar resonate in response to the vibrations of the strings,” it explains. “The vibrations generated by the actuators are then transmitted to the body of the guitar and to the air in and around it, resulting in authentic reverb, chorus and delay sounds that actually radiate from within the body.” Isn't science wonderful?

So six years on, what's changed with the TAGC 3?

Despite the name, the TransAcoustic TAG3 C is the beginning of the second generation of TransAcoustic guitars. The guitar itself is described by Yamaha as "an entirely new guitar design featuring new body materials".

The first-gen rollout saw more affordable laminate back and sides models and even a nylon-string guitar, but this goes back to the more premium solid wood approach of those 2016 models that launched this technology. Now Yamaha has added delay, Bluetooth app control and audio streaming, plus looping. The guitar comes in two finish options too – Natural, and the Sandburst I'm looking at here.

The new features seem to have necessitated a change in how the guitar is powered too – it now comes with its own proprietary magnetic USB cable to charge an internal Li-on battery, whereas the previous TransAcoustics used a pair of AA batteries.

But what's the point of the app?

It's very useful actually – it allows you to select between different reverb, delay and chorus modes, as well as changing some settings for the onboard looper – that can be controlled (in part) by tapping that 'o' shape you can see below the soundhole.

Specs

Launch price: $1,699.99/£1,639
Made: China
Body shape: Dreadnought cutaway
Body top: Solid Sitka spruce
Back and sides: Solid mahogany
Neck/shape: Mahogany
Scale/length: 25 9/16" (650mm)
Nut/width: Urea / 1 3/4" (44 mm)
String spacing at bridge: 55.5mm
Fingerboard/radius: Ebony/Body depth: 125mm
Finish: Include all finishes available in range
Bridge/pins: Ebony/ABS
Tuning machines: Open gear Champagne-Gold
Electronics: TransAcoustic (SYSTEM76) with built-in chorus, delay, reverb, looper and tuner
Controls: Line-out level, reverb, chorus, reverb, delay, looper level, tap sensor for ending loop record
Weight: 5.7lb/2.58kg
Case: Yamaha Hard Bag
Left-handed options: No
Contact: Yamaha

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

Yamaha knows how to build acoustic guitars, and previous TA models have impressed us as appealing guitars, before the technology they showcase. The gloss finish of the TransAcoustic TAG3 C holds up its end, with the Sandburst offering a darker hue in the hand than the press pics reflect. The blue ripple inlay on the soundhole adds an unexpected but classy subtle glimmer of colour and the choice of edge fret markers keeps things pretty minimal on the neck.

The decision to use open gear tuners gives this guitar a decided mix of traditional look and contemporary with its satin neck and electronic side. But it works – Yamaha is good at this kind of thing because they've put years into it.

A touch of the unusual is found on the top of the body: you may be wondering what the small dark wood inlaid circle on the lower bout is all about too. All will be revealed.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★½

The playability isn’t such a doozy with this test guitar. The matte neck finish is hugely appealing to the touch, as is the fairly slim carve (the shape isn't stated by Yamaha but feels a C to me). It promises smooth transitions, but the action here is one of the highest I can recall on a review acoustic in recent memory.

Measuring at 2.60mm on the low E and 2.20mm on high E from the 12th fret (while fretted at the first) confirms the surprising and disappointing decision to ship this with such a challenging setup. It certainly makes chords and notes resonate with warmth, but slows down runs to explore the enhanced access of the cutaway.

I say warmth because the TAG3 C really has an appealing low-end unplugged. That’s not a given with dreadnoughts, especially with mahogany in the mix, but there’s something quite satisfyingly played-in about the response here, with the softer, rounded high-end helping chord work feel full.

That’s all very well, but the electronic possibilities are what's going to be the real sell here. Previous Transacoustics offered reverb and chorus that could be dialled in to the player's taste, powered by a pair of AA batteries. Now there’s a lot more going on…

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★½

I'm going to talk about sounds here, but also usability. Because I think with the Yamaha TransAcoustic both are heavily interlinked, more so than most electro-acoustic guitars out there right now. And what may seem like a small thing at first, really matters in the grander scheme of potential ownership.

As I mentioned previously, the TAGC 3 C has an internal (non-user removable) lithium-ion rechargeable battery that’s charged via a proprietary USB cable that features a magnetic connection to the guitar. On the one hand, players don't have to worry about a constant supply of AA batteries, on the other, this guitar offers 5.5 hours of use under "typical operating conditions" from a charging time of up to 4.5 hours. That doesn't seem like a great ratio in 2024 to me – and I believe it starts to raise question marks over this guitar's practicality as a stage instrument.

What if you forget to charge the battery between gigs? Well, Yamaha states that the electronics can be used while charging so that's something. But carrying a power pack in your pocket with a lead coming out of it while playing guitar… it doesn't seem very smart or something us guitarists are used to having to do.

Another concern I have is the cable itself – you can't just nip to the local electronics shop and pick one up. Lose it and you can't charge this guitar and use it for its intended purpose. You'd need to contact Yamaha for a replacement. This isn't something even USB-C smartphone users have to contend with in 2024. Guitars aren’t cell phones, of course, but even those tend to offer alternative third-party charging cable options.

In a musicians' world of replaceable and readily available XLR and IEC 'kettle' leads, this kind of move seems regressive for me, even when the technology it powers is clearly a step forward. So to reiterate; what may at first seem like a small thing will matter every time you need to find the cable and charge it. It's a similar criticism the Fender American Acoustasonic models faced from some quarters, but even Fender had the decency to use a universal USB cable.

Some of the live potential here is at least enhanced here by placing a new line out level control inside the soundhole, and the controls on top expand the previous three rotary controls to four. Like previous models, the guitar ships with a plastic label on top of these to show which control serves each effect – but once that comes off you'll have to remember what does what. I think some kind of permanent indicators – however low-key – would have been useful for this second-generation TransAcoustic.

Each rotary knob serves as the level control for reverb, chorus, delay and loop level, while pressing down on the buttons activates functions including the tuner, Bluetooth and loop recording. I feel you may need the online manual to get started properly on this as it's not quite intuitive enough. But there's also a whole new level of control with the TAG Remote mobile app that has launched with this model.

This is the first Transacoustic to offer app connectivity, and that’s good news for getting more out of the sounds here. I also found it connected to the guitar via my Pixel 7 Pro Android phone reliably – at one point catching me unaware when I'd accidentally played Spotify on my phone and the music came on through the guitar's soundhole.

Yes, it can do that – which is an alternative to using a separate speaker to jam along to for sure. But back to the effects, the app opens up new modes and parameters for them that take this TransAcoustic model deeper into the effects side than previous models.

You get Hall, Plate and Room reverb, digital or analog-style delay and even a detune mode on the chorus, in addition to the kinds of parameters like Decay you’d expect on an effects pedal. Since the TransAcoustic launched, competition like Lava's 'smart' guitars and the latest ToneWoodAmp has expanded the scope for players (see my Also Try section) so this kind of expansion isn't just necessary for Yamaha to stay in the throng, but great for players too.

I think the reverb and sounds of the TransAcoustic TAG3 C are an improvement over the previous generation, though the caveat with the new delay mode is that the lower-end character of the guitar muddies the audibility of repeats at the lower frets. Indeed, the repeats in general could be brighter from both delay modes but that's perhaps a drawback of the acoustic technology involved here. Still, the tap-tempo – accessed by literally tapping the delay control/button – is handy and intuitive. Holding that same button down longer activates the tuner.

The looper look longer for me to feel comfortable with. While you use the main controls to activate the looper (with recording kicking in when you start playing), you actually stop the recording by tapping the circle shape on the guitar. You can adjust the sensitivity of this within the app, but it's obviously a different experience to using a looper pedal.

Once you get used to activating the looper, it's a really handy tool for practice and working on creative ideas. Ten of your loops can also be stored and recalled via the app, but the amount of overdubs you can layer with the looper is unlimited.

Yamaha TAG3 C TransAcoustic guitar: Verdict

Six years on, the TransAcoustic project has expanded here and despite my reservations about the battery charging situation, Yamaha states that in the longer term, "The internal battery can be replaced at a certified Yamaha service centre."

I think that a specific drawback of this guitar could make it unsuitable for regular live use, but it’s still an inspiring acoustic for the home. I have concerns about guitars with rechargeable power sources and relatively short battery life in general, as I've pointed out. And there's no passive pickup to fall back on, so players will need to make sure they keep things topped up on the power side.

But for a home instrument, this is an especially creative tool to have on hand and holds its own – high action on our test model aside – even with the electronics off.

With plenty of very impressive competition on the acoustic side in this price bracket, the outlay here is really about the latest Acoustasonic technology. It really needs to be tried and considered by players to see if it's a genuinely long-term attraction or something you're happy to let your pedalboard handle.

MusicRadar verdict: Reservations about the proprietary cable and rechargeable battery's live practicality aside, this is a notable step forward for the TransAcoustic series in terms of features – but you need to decide if the effects are worth the outlay for your ambitions.

Yamaha TransAcoustic TAG3 C guitar: Also try

Yamaha TAG3 C TransAcoustic guitar: Hands-on videos

Michael Lemmo for Yamaha Guitars

Martina Blazeska

• The best acoustic guitars to buy now

Some of these electric guitars need little introduction, such as the 'Yardburst' 1959 Les Paul Standard. Gibson recently unveiled a Murphy Lab replica of it, restoring its Dark Cherry Sunburst finish to make it look exactly like it did during his days as a Yardbird.

The original had been stripped and modified, as was Beck's wont. Christie's says he bought the Les Paul for £175 for it in 1966, from London’s gear hotspot of the time, Selmer’s, on Charing Cross Road. It will surely down as one of the best investments in rock ’n’ roll history.

Beck used it to record Over Under Sideways Down and Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. But it also served him well during his solo career, most notably on signature tune, Beck’s Bolero.

We can’t talk about Beck’s guitar collection without mentioning the Fender Stratocaster. This was the guitar he was synonymous with, his preternatural command of the whammy bar making the instrument talk.

This forthcoming auction will see his 1954 Strat (serial number: 0062) find a new home. Steve Marriott from Humble Pie gave Beck this guitar in 1976. Like many players of the time, including Eric Clapton, Beck took advantage of Leo Fender’s bolt-on design and swapped the neck out for a ’58.

Speaking to BBC Radio 2 in 2022, Beck said Stratocasters were perfect for his needs. “It does what I want,” he said. “It's infinitely variable in its tone and capabilities with the spring-loaded bridge. It was though it was made for me – thank you very much, Leo!”

Think of Beck and the white Stratocaster will come into mind. The oldest of these was named Anoushka, after Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi, who signed the guitar at Beck’s request. It was Masterbuilt in the Custom Shop by J.W. Black and was his main recording guitar for a number of years.

Beck’s wife, Sandra Beck, says it is time these guitars and more found a new home, and said that this was what he would have wanted. They are to be played.

“After some hard thinking I decided they need to be shared, played and loved again,” she said. “It is a massive wrench to part with them but I know Jeff wanted for me to share this love. He was a maestro of his trade. He never lusted after commercial success. For him it was just about the music.

“He constantly reinvented himself with his musical direction and I could not single out one person, one recording or one guitar as his favourite. I hope the future guitarists who acquire these items are able to move closer to the genius who played them. Thank you all for considering a small piece of Jeff that I am now hoping to share with you.”

Beck’s Oxblood Les Paul [pictured at the top of the page] is forecasted to be the most valuable, with estimates between £350,000 and £500,000. It has been well played, appearing on the cover of Beck’s first solo album, 1975’s Blow By Blow.

Perhaps the guitar that best exemplifies Beck’s Frankenstein sensibility when it came to modding guitars was the "Tele-Gib", though this time it was Seymour Duncan who did the modding. This guitar started life as a 1959 Fender Telecaster. Duncan found it in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1972, when it had been “butchered” by ill-advised mods.

Working in London in 1974, Duncan took the opportunity to fix this Telecaster up and give it to Beck. He had something special in mind for the pickups, and took a pair of Gibson PAF humbuckers out of an old Flying V, once owned by Lonnie Mack, and installed them in the Telecaster.

“It was hard finding the magnet wire needed for winding the coils,” recalled Duncan, writing on the Seymour Duncan website. “I found the wire at a motor repair shop and ended up with two different rolls of wire for winding the coils. I used the heavier gauge to wind the neck pickup also because I had only a small amount. I used the finer wire to wind the bridge pickup because I could get extra turns on the bobbins for increased sustain, harmonics and output.”

Beck loved it, and used it on Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers and Freeway Jam. Duncan was given an Esquire in return. It is expected to fetch between £100,000 and £150,000.

And a particular favourite of ours from this collection – a guitar that has inspired the likes of John Mayer – was Tina, the pink Jackson Soloist that was used in (and named for) Beck’s session work with Tina Turner. It is expected to fetch between £8,000 and £12,000. We’d pay that for the Kahler vibrato unit alone.

The Jeff Beck Collection will be available to view by the public from 4 to 6 December in Los Angeles, with public viewing in London opening on 15 January 2025 before the auction on the 22nd. For more details, head over to Christie’s.

And with its “Flower & Vine” inlay and its black, flat-top cutaway body, it looks like a natural rival to Tim Henson’s Tree Of Death Ibanez signature guitar. The similarities don’t end there, however, with this Harley Benton model similarly outfitted with a Fishman Sonicore acoustic guitar pickup system.

Unlike some of the other nylon-string Harley Benton guitars, the Nashville Nylon Plus Black eschews soundholes, with only a shoulder-positioned soundport offering the player some immediate acoustic feedback to what they are playing.

This has a thinline body of chambered mahogany topped with solid Sitka spruce, with the body’s top finished off with a strip of ivory binding with black purfling. It’s a classy looking instrument.

It is certainly not underdressed either – with that “Flower & Vine” inlay and carved fingerboard giving it a high-end vibe. Players weaned on the heady cedar scent of old-school Spanish-built guitars may need some adjusting to this.

The fingerboard might feel flat, a 15.7” radius offering a fairly conventional platform for showcasing your Malagueña.

But wait, there are controls mounted on the top of the instrument, just like an electric guitar – except here those controls are for volume, treble and bass, with the 2-band EQ not something you would find on an electric, where you typically start at 10 with the treble then roll some off if you want a bassier tone.

Harley Benton says it splits the difference between traditional classical guitar tones and the nylon-string’s more 21st-century applications, as popularised by Polyphia et al.

“The Nashville Nylon Plus Black remains true to its classical roots, delivering the warm, mellow tones that classical guitarists appreciate, whether acoustic or plugged-in,” reads the blurb. “Fingerpicking intricate melodies or strumming chords on the nylon strings brings the unmistakable voice of a traditional classical instrument into a contemporary design.

“Yet, for players wanting to push boundaries and explore uncharted musical territory, this guitar becomes the perfect partner. Whether crafting intricate harmonies or unleashing high-octane riffs, the Nashville Nylon Plus Black invites players to blend genres and redefine their sound.”

In other words, it is an invitation to experiment. Its also designed to showcase your chops. Looking at this doesn’t make us think a G/C/D open-chord progression with the melancholy counterpoint of Amin.

This for thinking outside of the box, for classically inspired shred, splitting the atom with some arpeggios, and maybe augmenting its sound with a well-stocked pedalboard.

The neck dimensions – 20.5mm at the first fret, 23.5mm at the 12th – suggest as much. Comfort U profile should make for a speedy, high-performance instrument. The neck is three-piece mahogany, and bound. The scale length is 25.5”.

There are has 21 premium nickel-silver frets. The aforementioned fingerboard is ovangkol. The nut is bone, as is the saddle, and it and measures 46mm wide.

The Nashville Nylon Plus Black is available now exclusively via Thomann and the Official Harley Benton Reverb Shop. It is priced £333/$421. For more details, head over to Harley Benton.

The new electric guitars comprise the Les Paul Tribute and the SG Tribute, while the J-45 Express shrinks Gibson’s iconic slope-shouldered dreadnought acoustic guitar down to 7/8ths of its size for an instrument that is A) kind to young hands and novice players, and B) portable enough to travel with. There are left-handed models available, too.

If the Tribute electrics look familiar that is because they assume the archetypical form of their Gibson counterparts, but also that they do a similar job as the Gibson USA Tribute series, with Epiphone similarly stripping down the spec to make these pretty much as affordable as it gets (hint: if you’re looking for an even cheaper deal on an Epiphone guitar, the Power Players Les Paul and SG might be the one, and they come bundled with a guitar strap, guitar cable and some picks, too).

The Tribute models have a more muted aesthetic, with unbound bodies, dot inlays instead of the acrylic trapezoids you would typically find on the fingerboard, and of course there is no maple cap. These all have carved mahogany tops, and the necks join the body with a four-bolt joint instead of being glued to the body like their more expensive.

Epiphone has also dispensed with the pickguards. But the money spent by doing that can be apportioned to the fundamentals – this is still a very credible build. You have a solid mahogany body, a mahogany neck topped with a bound laurel fingerboard. The fingerboard’s 12” radius allied to the 24.75” scale length is wholly on-brand for a Gibson electric.

So is the pickup and control configuration, with a pair of Epiphone 650R/700T ceramic humbuckers at the neck and bridge positions controlled by a pair of volume controls and a pair of tone knobs. A three-way pickup selector is mounted on a black washer on the instrument’s shoulder.

The SlimTaper neck should be a welcoming platform for novice players, and heck anyone who wants something comfortable enough for chords but shaped to get out of your way when soloing.

Epiphone is offering the Les Paul Tribute in Ebony, Vintage Sunburst and Heritage Cherry Sunburst, with an Aqua version available direct from Gibson, either online or at the Gibson Garage in London or Nashville. Priced £249/$299, these are available now.

The SG Tribute receives the same treatment. It has the same essential dimensions as the Les Paul, same pickups, and the neck is similarly bolted to the body. This, if anything, is even more beginner-friendly, with Epiphone stripping down the traditional SG control setup to a simple volume and tone. It is priced £249/$279 street, and is offered in Cherry, Ebony or in Aqua as a Gibson exclusive.

Now for the J-45 Express. That would be a good name for a band. What we have here looks familiar all right. We have the slope-shouldered silhouette that definitely makes us think of Gibson’s indomitable workhorse. But when you pick this one off the shelf you will notice that the body is shrunken; in fact, Epiphone actually lists this as a slope-shouldered travel guitar, which speaks to its portability.

Portability, however, could also be translated as beginner-friendly, or child-friendly. Younger players will often struggle with a full-sized dreadnought, and many of us on staff here still have nightmares (and cramps) at fighting the action on a set of 14s on a cheapo dread’. This would be much more fun as a guitar for a beginner.

Again, the body and build is pared back. This is Epiphone doing the essentials. The body is laminated mahogany on the back and sides, with layered spruce on top. The neck is C profile (and we’d wager a crowd-pleasing C at that), and the scale length of the instrument is a very approachable 22.7”. You will notice the difference in string tension and the feel of the guitar.

Again, there is a 12” laurel fingerboard, with dot inlays marking out the 19 medium frets. This has been kitted out with a set of mini die-cast tuners and it has a reverse belly bridge carved from laurel to match the fingerboard. It measures 43mm across at the nut.

It also ships with a gig bag, inside which you will find three guitar picks to get you started. All you need next is three chords, then you’re off to the races.

Epiphone is offering the J-45 Express in Ebony and Vintage Sunburst, and there is a Pelham Blue version available as a Gibson exclusive online or at the Garages. Single-ply binding has been applied to the the J-45 Express’ body. It looks the part for £/$299.

For more details, head over to Epiphone or the Gibson Gazette, where you will find news of all things Gibson.

This limited run (they’re only making 45 of ‘em) is Martin’s Nazareth, Pennsylvania factory showing off, applying all of their know-how to bring the 21st-century guitarist an instrument that looks and feels “just as it came off the workbench” some 80 years ago, right down to the abalone “Style 45” snowflake inlays on its ebony fingerboard.

Bonamassa has had tons of signature guitars. But this is the first limited edition acoustic guitar to bear his name, and in effect it is a limited run of a guitar that was never made in great numbers. Martin says it only made 265.

The story behind Bonamassa’s original acoustic takes us back through three generations of one Southern Californian family, where this 000-45 had been kept for decades. It proved a sound investment; the sale of it saved a woman’s house.

“I don’t collect guitars, I collect stories,” says Bonamassa. “I don’t collect instruments because I want a deal on them. I want to collect instruments because I want to help a family out of financial trouble, and they have this one item that could be sold for lots of money... It was the last thing of value that she had, so it saved her house, and I got a wonderful guitar and a hell of a story.”

Anyone who can pony up the $19,999 asking price for this will get a heck of a guitar that will be worth holding onto, not least because it will surely appreciate in value. All the specs are top-shelf, with Guatemalan rosewood on the back and sides, Adirondack spruce on the top, braced with X-pattern scalloped spruce.

In keeping with the time machine vibe, Martin has applied its VTS (Vintage Tone System) to age this wood, giving it that extra warm, resonance and detail that you get from a premium vintage acoustic.

The guitar has been judiciously decorated with abalone. You’ll find it on the fingerboard, headstock, top inlays and the rosette. Even the bridge pins have a little shell sparkle to them.

As for the vital statistics, we have a 24.9” scale, a mahogany neck that has been matched to Bonamassa’s original. When Bonamassa turned it over to Martin’s luthier’s, in mint condition, the 000-45 still had its original ticket on it.

In 1941, it cost $225. And yet it is a guitar that most players will never have the good fortune to play. Hence why Bonamassa and Martin are producing this run. This is not the sort of super high-end acoustic guitar you can mass produce, but Bonamassa promises an exact replica for the lucky 45 who get their hands on one.

“It's really important to me that the new guitar stayed true to the old one, because there's no other reason to do it,” he says. “It gives people an opportunity to feel what it's like to hold a Golden Era 000-45... I'm not redesigning a Martin guitar. I'm just sharing 45 times over a glimpse into a guitar that I own, that most people will never get to play, or see.”

There is one modern update to the 000-45. But purists, relax. It’s an adjustable truss rod. Who could complain about that? You will find JoBo's signature on the soundhole label, and there is a certificate of authenticity, a vintage hang tag, and a period-correct hardshell guitar case to keep this guitar mint.

Martin's Joe Bonamassa signature model comes hot on the heels of a pair of Johnny Marr acoustics, the M7 and M6, the former equipped with seven strings, with an octave G to give you some of the indie guitar icon's trademark jangle

The 000-45 Joe Bonamassa is out now. See Martin for more details.

Video footage inside and out show the extent of the flooding, with Traffic News LA reporting on YouTube that “merchandise and debris” could be seen pouring out of the back of the store.

Master Of Shred’s Instagram page posted footage of the flood inside the store, and if you are of a nervous disposition when it comes to the safety of your electric guitar, look away now: it looks like a river is flowing through the shop floor.

As one commentator noted, “Good thing the custom shops are up high!” That’s true. Maybe. They might be okay from the flooding on the ground floor. But they won’t if the water was entering from the roof as was reported.

Traffic News LA says the collision resulted in a male in his 50s crashing his black Subaru into the fire hydrant, outside the popular 14209 Ventura Blvd store.

The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed that two vehicles were involved in the collision. A 78-year-old man was taken to hospital but his condition was described as “fair”. The 911 call came in at 1.23pm.

By the time the fire department had shut off the supply to the hydrant, it had caused “a partial collapse” of the Guitar Centers’ roof. Thankfully, no one was injured inside the building.

The Sherman Oaks store has been closed since the accident, but is scheduled to reopen at as usual on Monday 18 November at 11am.

Early this year, Guitar Center’s CEO Gabe Dalporto described how the US-based gear retail giant was going to change strategy, promising that more focus would be placed on retaining serious and professional players.

In an interview with Music Inc. Magazine, he admitted that the company had focused too much on guitars for beginners, arguing that it had forgotten who its “core customer” was.

Dalporto said he wanted to make premium products more accessible, to make it more easy for serious players to come in and get their hands on a high-end acoustic guitar or an electric and try it out.

“I want customers to walk into [a store] and have the same experience I had when I was younger and just be hit in the face with, ‘Wow, this is amazing. This is a playground. This is where I belong,’” said Dalporto. “And that means having a much more premium assortment that’s more easily accessible where I can get in and grab a guitar and plug it in and try all these pedals and effects and just geek out and have a great time.”

Both are nigh-on identical, with light ageing on the Cherry Tea finishes giving them that time machine look that the Murphy Lab specialises in. They ship in custom hard-shell guitar cases with Page’s Zoso logo on the front. Both epitomise high-end acoustic guitar making and will set you back a pretty penny.

The Jimmy Page 1964 SJ-200 Collector’s Edition is limited to 50 units worldwide, comes with Page’s signature on the back of the headstock, and is priced an eye-watering £17,499/$19,999. The “regular” Jimmy Page 1964 SJ-200 is also very much a collector-grade instrument, priced accordingly at £11,299/$12,999.

Each of these instruments has a soundhole label that has been signed by Page, and you can consider that his seal of approval that Gibson got these replicas spot on.

As he reveals in the introduction video, he had a little trepidation when the first prototype turned up for inspection. Would it be a disappointment? He need not have worried.

“The J-200 is such a quality instrument. It really, really is,” says Page. “When I saw the prototype, the case had arrived and I thought, ‘Oh boy, what’s going to happen when I open this?’ We worked really hard on this to get it right, with all the colour matches and all that from the original, and I thought, ‘Wow! They’ve got it!’”

Page had the photos of the original. He had his memories of the original. This would be one of the most important acoustics in his collection. It was the SJ-200 he used on Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut and the guitar he chose when booked to perform on the Julie Felix Show on 26 April 1970, when he played White Summer/Black Mountain Side for a television audience.

Gibson says Page had “significant input” into the design of these guitars, offering his feedback and counsel “on everything from the sonic character and wear to the playability”. The Cherry Tea sunburst finish was also met with Page’s approval.

“I just took it out and I could see all the flame coming out on the side of it and I went, ‘Oh my goodness gracious.’ It’s just so beautiful,” says Page. “I was just looking at it and admiring every aspect of it because it was so authentic and yet it was so new at the same time. Then I played a little bit on it and I thought, ‘Wow! This is just so much the right thing that has been done here.’”

The SJ-200 is not known as “the king of the flat-tops” for nothing but these take the cake with AAA flame maple on the back and sides of the instrument and a soundboard of AAA Sitka spruce. The neck joins the body with a compound dovetail neck-to-body joint that has been set with hot hide glue.

Flame maple is the recurring theme. You’ll find it again on the three-piece neck, fashioned into a round profile and topped with an Indian rosewood fingerboard inlaid with MOP graduated crowns.

The Moustache bridge is a work of art, too, all rosewood inlaid with mother-of-pearl mother-of-pearl hourglass and teardrop details. And then you have the pickguard, which, again, has been aged to match that finish.

As you would expect, there is multi-ply binding on the top and back of the body, with single-ply binding on the fingerboard and headstock – the headstock is fitted with a set of Kluson Waffleback tuners with keystone buttons in gold.

These guitars have left the Gibson Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana, with a Tune-O-Matic Bridge with nylon saddles but inside the case there is another Tune-O-Matic unit with gold-plated brass saddles.

The vital statistics read 12” fingerboard radius, 25.5” scale length and a 42.8625mm (1.687”) nut width. The truss rod cover is black with a wide white border and it is engraved with “Custom” lest you forget the instrument’s provenance.

Inside the case there is all manner of ephemera, including a certificate of authenticity, a guitar strap, and in the Collector’s Edition you also get a guitar pick that has been used by Page himself.

The Collector's Edition is limited to 50 units worldwide, with 100 of the regular '64 SJ-200 available now. For more details, head over to Gibson.

To the naked eye, the Booster Soundport is a subtle modification. From a distance you might not even notice that six linear holes have been precision-carved on the top of the guitar. But in practice it is quite radical, with Petr Furch, CEO of Furch Guitars, promising a “new dimension to the playing experience”.

“It’s not just about louder sound – it’s about achieving a more responsive, resonant instrument that truly comes to life in your hands,” he says. “Whether you’re writing music, performing, or playing for yourself, the Booster Soundport ensures that the sound reaches your ears as clearly and richly as it does for your audience.”

“It brings that improved sound closer to your ears in a more accurate form. It’s ideal for anyone who wants to get the most out of their guitar, whether performing for an audience or playing for personal enjoyment.”

Furch’s rationale makes us think of Gibson’s Player Port, which made its debut on the brand’s Montana-built Generation Collection, and offered today’s player a refined version of a player-facing soundhole that dated back to 1964. Cort is another brand that has experimented with player-facing soundports. But Furch's design and how it arrived at it is quite different.

Furch and his team began by comparing the company’s dreadnoughts with its smaller-bodied models, such as the Little Jane and its OM range. The smaller instruments punched above their weight. “When I examined our dreadnoughts, despite their volume and rich low-end, I realised there was more untapped potential to unlock – not just in our guitars, but in all dreadnoughts in general,” says Furch.

The R&D team tried increasing the size of the soundhole. As they did, they noticed improvements in the acoustic’s performance, and yet still something was not right. For a start, those earlier experiments just didn’t look right.

“As fans of traditional acoustic guitar design, we were reluctant to compromise the guitar’s structure and aesthetics with an oversized soundhole,” says Furch.

A fresh approach was needed. That’s when they came upon the Booster Soundport's linear openings.

“The additional soundhole circumference is distributed across these six openings, preserving both the guitar’s acoustic benefits and its structural integrity,” explains Furch. “Additionally, the soundport is reinforced with a fibreglass under-layer, providing superior structural stability and ensuring long-lasting durability.”

The steel-string acoustic guitar has taken some big evolutionary leaps in recent years. Fender’s Acoustasonic series has blurred the line between acoustic and electric guitar, while Martin’s SC range brings electric playability to the party. Yamaha just recently launched its TransAcoustic TG 3, a cutaway dreadnought with onboard reverb, delay, chorus, looper, all playing through the soundhole – plus Bluetooth connectivity that allows players to stream audio through the guitar.

So, all things considered, Furch’s Booster Soundport is unlikely to upset the purists. But if Furch and his team’s calculations are correct – with this design delivering an extra 1.4dB on average across the entire audible frequency range, a 24 per cent increase in the upper-mids, and 16 per cent more volume directed towards the player – then it could present players with a transformative acoustic experience, and your audience will be none the wiser.

At present, Furch Guitars offers the Booster Soundport on two models in its Blue Performance series, with plans to roll out the new design across a full range of models in the future. For more details, head over to Furch Guitars.

To recap, an attendee at last month’s Ellis County Wild Game dinner and charity auction in Texas - later revealed to be a man by the name of Gary Estes - was reported to have purchased the guitar for $4,000.

A viral video then showed him taking a hammer to the instrument, apparently in protest at Swift’s endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the upcoming US presidential election.

Auctioneer Craig Meier would later tell NBC News that it was “just a light-hearted bit of a dig at Taylor for coming out politically and entertainers using their influence to influence politics," while Estes himself said that "There was nothing malicious or anything about it. It was just a joke at an auction that we had to raise money for kids, right?”

To be fair to Estes, he then put his money/smashed guitar where his mouth was and donated the guitar back to the nonprofit organisation, which re-listed it on eBay. This has now sold for $6,650 - more than Estes originally paid for it - and we’re told that proceeds are going “to local kids that need the resources to participate in agriculture educational programs.”

The eBay listing also attempted to put to bed the rumour that the signature on the guitar isn’t actually genuine, explaining that it was “made on an album cover, but later cut into the shape of the pick guard and added to the guitar”. A certificate of authenticity was included to support this claim.

The identity of the eBay buyer hasn’t been revealed, but we can only assume that they’ll take better care of the guitar than its previous owner.

This is a dramatic expansion of the TransAcoustic concept. Models such as the FG-TA have presented players with chorus and reverb. But a looper? And Bluetooth?

The latter allows you to stream audio from your smartphone/mobile device etc and the two actuators inside the body will process that information and play the audio through the soundhole. Very impressive.

Also impressive is the expansion of the onboard TransAcoustic effects. The TAG3 C might well put your pedalboard out of commission with delay, chorus and reverb all onboard – and there is a looper.

It’s like the marketing blurb says, the next-gen TransAcoustasonic provides the “entire creative process of listening, playing, and creating is brought together in a single guitar”.

If this all seems a bit too 2024 for you let’s look at the fundamentals. Taking the Bluetooth, the looper and all of the electronics out of the question, this is a nice cutaway dreadnought with an all-solid build. Knowing Yamaha, it will be a very tidy build, too.

The tonewood recipe is also quite reassuringly familiar, with solid Sitka spruce on the top, solid mahogany on the back and sides. The fingerboard is ebony, as are the bridge and pins, with the nut and saddles fashioned from urea.

A transparent pickguard adds to the unfussy aesthetic though there is a circle design on the lower cutaway that should alert you to the fact that this is not your garden variety acoustic. The open-gear tuners are a nice old-school touch on what is very much a new-school instrument.

Now, back to the electronic stuff. The good news is that these added features do not treat too heavily on the design of the guitar.

Like most acoustic electrics, there’s an end-pin jack. The controls for the effects are mounted on top-side of the guitar, and include tap tempo and a tuner. When you dial in your reverb, delay or chorus sound, the actuators respond accordingly to the vibrations of the strings and there you have it, effects.

There is an input for the charging cable (and you will have to use Yamaha's TransAcoustic cable for this) on the shoulder of the guitar, and it is a pity that this hasn't been secreted inside the soundhole or perhaps down beside the end-pin.

The looper is very clever. Not only can you create loops of your playing, allowing you to lay down a chord progression to play over, you can also use the guitar percussively, tapping out a beat on the guitar’s body and then saving that as a loop to play over. Magic.

Yamaha is offering the TAG3 C in two finishes, Natural and a sunburst. It is priced £1639 and ships in a hard-shell guitar case. For more details, head over to Yamaha.

The brainchild of executive chairman Chris Martin IV, the O’ahu HG-28 features a 14-fret slope-shouldered dreadnought shape but with a shallower 000 depth, making for one very approachable instrument. 

And while this is very much a guitar for today’s player (c’mon, who among us doesn’t like the idea of a slightly more compact dreadnought with a similarly assertive set of lungs on it?), the inspiration for its design – and the O’ahu series – goes way back to the early acoustic designs of the 1920s and ‘30s.

This was a time when the craze for Hawaiian music saw luthiers pioneer new steel string instruments for slide, and for volume as players performed for larger audiences.

The O’ahu HG-28 is constructed of a solid spruce top with scalloped X-bracing, and solid flamed Hawaiian koa on the back and sides. “This choice of tonewoods not only delivers a stunning aesthetic but also ensures a rich, balanced tone with articulate highs and warm lows,” says Martin.

The series also introduces the “O’ahu” name to the headstock, and Martin promises that “anyone who picks up this guitar will instantly notice how comfortable it is” with a short 24.9” scale length and a Golden Era modified low oval neck profile to accommodate the fretting hand. This neck has left Martin’s Nazareth, PA facility with a satin-smooth finish. 

We’re clearly in for a tactile, super-smooth playing experience here, and unlike the early Hawaiian-spec’d acoustics, on which you might find nut extenders to set them up for slide, the O’ahu HG-28 is built for low-action and a easy ride.

It is not without vintage details. The herringbone trim and antique white binding is a nod to Martin’s earliest Hawaiian guitar designs, the faux tortoiseshell pickguard an evergreen brand signifier. And the nickel open-gear tuners look reassuringly 20th century.

As for the other essential details, the neck, as per Martin’s style, is “select hardwood.” The fingerboard is inlaid with Old Style 18 fret markers, and is ebony just like the bridge. A compensated bone saddle should be a guarantor of on-point intonation.

And while the neck might be satin, Martin has given the body a lick of glass lacquer to reveal that Hawaiian koa out in all its glory. The guitar ships in a soft-shell hemp guitar case to keep that finish pristine. 

The O’ahu HG-28 is a sibling to the Custom K-1 Major Kealakai, which was launched in February and named for the great Hawaiian musician Major Kealakai, who was the guitarist and composer for the Royal Hawaiian Band.

The Custom K-1 Major Kealakai is a modern-day replica of the custom acoustic that Martin made him in 1916, which featured a longer body than the 000 and was an evolutionary step toward the design of the dreadnought.

Available now, the O’ahu HG-28 is priced $3,599. See Martin for more details, and check out the video above in which Chris Martin IV shares the historical perspective behind the guitar's design, and why this febrile moment in acoustic guitar design caught his imagination.

This is big news for beginner guitar player, or for anyone looking for a cheap electric guitar – or acoustic, bass, guitar amp, stompbox or even pedalboard power supply – just consider the PowerPlant ISO-12AC Pro Modular for a second. Heck, that beast offers 12 isolated outputs for under $150. You name it and Harley Benton will most likely make it, and at a fraction of the price of the model that inspired it.

This is, after all, the brand that brought us credible LP-inspired singlecuts for just over 300 bucks, the Blackguard-inspired E-52 NA Vintage Series T-style for under $200, and a compact 1x8 tube amp combo loaded with a Celestion speaker for the scandalously affordable $165. 

We could go on. Some of the prices on Harley Benton guitars read like typos, especially when you look at some of the more higher-end models in the SC series of single-cuts.

Take a model such as the SC-550 for example. This arrives fitted with a set of EMG Retro Active FAT 55 humbuckers, stainless steel frets and locking tuners and yet offers you plenty of change from $500 – $78 to be exact, which which you could buy four of the Thomann-owned brand’s mini pedals.

In the near future, relic’d guitars might be on the list, too. The other big Harley Benton news to break this week came from Mannheim, Germany, where the Guitar Summit was in full swing. Harley Benton took the opportunity to showcase its forthcoming range of relic’d guitars and basses featuring nitrocellulose finishes.

Harley Benton’s Bene Schlereth could not reveal too much but holding a prototype of a TE T-style electric guitar he said the nitro lacquer, typically found on US-made models from Gibson, Fender et al, give these prototypes an upscale feel. “I think it makes a massive difference because of the neck,” said Schlereth It just feels very organic and I really, really like it.”

And given the ageing properties of nitro, these guitars should only look better in the years to come. 

Other new prototypes shared at Guitar Summit included the ST-80 shred guitar, a hotrodded S-style with a single Tesla humbucker at the bridge, a Floyd Rose vibrato, a compound radius fingerboard and a bright red finish that no one is going to miss, and the CLG-70 acoustic electric guitar.

We’ll bring you all the news when these new models are officially launched. For more information on the range, head over to Harley Benton, and to order in the US head to the Harley Benton Reverb Store.