The Black Friday guitar deals are in full swing and your social feed and email inbox is no doubt being bombarded with potential offers. Just at Sweetwater alone they’ve got over 14,000 deals, so when you combine that with all the retailers out there it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of discounts flying around at this time of the year.

To help you cut through the noise, I think I’ve found the most useful deal for guitarists. At Sweetwater you can get 5 packs of Ernie Ball guitar strings for just $19.95. Ordinarily costing $34.95, you’re essentially getting two packs for free, and an extra dollar on top, making it one of my favorite deals of Black Friday so far.

No matter what your style of play you’re always going to need fresh guitar strings. Whether you’re a bedroom player or regularly gigging, strings are the most vital consumable that you’re bound to run out of, so buying in bulk is a great way to save money in the long run. I stocked up on my favorite set of Skinny Top, Heavy Bottom last year and I still have some left over, making it absolutely a worthwhile investment.

I’ve been using Ernie Ball strings for pretty much my entire playing career, and despite some small stints trying other brands, I’ve always come back. I’ve always had a heavy right hand, and something about the construction of Slinkys has meant they’ve always put up really well with my playing style, pretty much always lasting until they’re past their best and need a string change.

If you’re not an electric guitar player don’t worry, EB’s Earthwood acoustic strings are included in the sale too. There’s a range of gauges and you can get Phosphor Bronze or 80/20 Bronze sets depending on your preference. At this price, you might even want to buy both and shoot them out to see if your personal choice really is better than the other.

John Mayer has added to his growing list of signature gear with the release of a custom gauge Ernie Ball string set.

Called Silver Slinky as a nod to his best-selling Silver Sky PRS, the esteemed bluesman has revealed the set has been in development for several years, calling the final result “the ultimate set for my playing style”.

It offers an interesting take on the Ernie Ball's standard 10–46 string set by delivering an ultra-precise set of gauges: .0105, .0135, .0175p, .027w, .037, and .047.

The ultra-precision of those gauges may raise eyebrows to the causal observer, but as Mayer explains via an Instagram post, there is a method to his madness.

“The gauges are perfectly situated between .010 and .011 sets, and feature special core-to-wrap ratios,” he says. “The tension is exactly where I’ve always wanted it — big enough to get great tone, but nimble enough to finesse those vocal bends we as guitar players are always going for.

“I’ve been using them for the past couple of years, and now it’s time to put them in your hands."

The PRS signature artist is fresh from his Las Vegas Sphere residency with Dead & Company, where he's played Jeff Beck's custom Strat –— thanks to Joe Bonamassa — as well as an off-the-shelf Alligator Strat replica that “was too good to put down.” s it turns out, his custom Silver Slinky set was along for the ride every step of the way.

Ernie Ball Silver Slinky string sets are available now. Each set costs $29.99 and comes with a swish tin.

Head over to Ernie Ball to learn more.

Ernie Ball Music Man has announced a new Jason Richardson Artist Series Cutlass HT collection of guitars, designed to the specifications of the All That Remains guitarist and solo artist.

Richardson’s first take on the firm’s Cutlass electric guitar was introduced in 2019, with the guitarist, who cut his teeth playing in Born of Osiris and Chelsea Grin, telling Guitar World, “I play this guitar every night. I was a high-school kid watching John Petrucci play his Music Man... now I have my own signature model.”

The next generation of signature guitars is spearheaded by brand-new, specially designed HT humbucker pickups resulting from “over a decade of guitar string research” and voiced to Richardson’s liking.

Such science has resulted in a humbucker set that delivers “an ultra-high-output and powerful low-end response” without compromising the clarity of the tones produced at lower volumes.

Continuing the focus on premium electronics, the guitar comes with two push/push controls, for both coil-splitting the new humbuckers and delivering an innovative 20+ dB gain boost.

Elsewhere, the new models sport 24 stainless steel frets and a custom Music Man fixed bridge with a whammy bar.

The guitar is available in two finishes and top woods to augment its alder body. The Kokiri Forest colorway has been described as “a mesmerizing translucent green finish” and is crafted with a buckeye burl top, and a roasted, figured maple neck with an ebony fretboard.

A translucent Venetian Red finish pairs the same alder body with a maple burl top and a white maple neck with a striped ebony fretboard.

Of the two finishes, the Kokiri Forest is more readily available in six- and seven-string formats. The Venetian Red colorway is exclusively available via the Ernie Ball Music Man Vault, limited to 50 units split evenly between six- and seven-string models.

“These new pickups are a level up,” Richardson enthuses, saying that they offer “more body and fullness, [and] effortless pinch harmonics.

“I’m stoked to have more variations for everyone to choose from. The Kokiri Forest is absolutely stunning to see in person, and the Venetian Red also adds a more diverse option between the woods that we haven’t done with my line before. I’m incredibly stoked for both these guitars.”

Credited by Guitar Player as one of five cutting-edge guitarists you need to know about, Richardson was championed alongside Aussie maestro Plini, Jakub Zytecki, Lari Basilio, and Sarah Lipstate, who trades under the name Noveller.

That should go someway into underscoring his talents, as should the fact that he's a perennial when it comes to EBMM signature models, which is no mean feat.

Reviewed in 2021, his HH Cutlass was cited by this very publication as “a super-classy take on the future-forward electric,” with its “wonderful vibrato unit” singled out for its well-crafted design and hand comfort.

Its biggest pitfall was the price, and the HT's $3,599 pricetag will continue to be a sticking point.

Head to Ernie Ball to learn more about the new Jason Richardson Cutless HT models.

As guitarists, we often neglect changing our strings as frequently as we should. It can be intimidating and expensive to replace the strings on your guitar, especially if you have multiple instruments at home. Well, Amazon has the answer in the form of hefty discounts. Amazon Prime Day is here, and there are significant discounts on a variety of items, including guitar strings!

Over the next 48 hours, Amazon will be slashing the price of a wide range of products, from smart devices to musical instruments and much more. Now, it's worth noting that only Prime members can take advantage of the substantial price cuts - so if you aren't already a member, be sure to sign up now to gain access to the fantastic Prime Day guitar deals. 

Time is running out, so do not let this opportunity to save big on your guitar strings and other musical equipment pass you by!

Annie Clark, A.K.A. St. Vincent, is one of the most well-known and commercially successful artists at the forefront of cutting-edge guitar today.

The Oklahoman singer-songwriter already has three Grammy awards to her name and has performed at the ceremony onstage with pop sensation Dua Lipa.

But despite having one foot in the mainstream, Clark’s unorthodox approach to guitar fully embraces the avant-garde.

St. Vincent’s 2017 LP, Masseduction, cracked the top 10 in both the U.S. and the U.K., and its electro-pop sound saw Clark rethinking the tonal palette of her guitar rather than abandoning it in favor of synths, something more typical of the genre’s core sound.

Masseduction’s title track features heavy, fuzz-centric riffing that sounds far closer to a saw-wave synth than an electric guitar, or anything obviously played by a human for that matter.

Clark uses a slide to allow a continuous glide between notes that gives the riffs a pitch-bending quality, and her use of the extremely obscure AAAAAE tuning allows her to hit multiple octaves at once for a thick, robotic sound.

Clark’s most recent album, Daddy’s Home, channels 1970s downtown New York City through soul-inspired vocals and a heavy use of a wah.

The album highlight, “Down,” features Clark on both guitar and electric sitar-guitar, layering variant riffs atop one another before coming together for a harmonized dual-guitar solo that pays homage to psychedelia while sounding inventive and unique.

Not just content to stretch the boundaries of her music, Clark’s penchant for a bold, original idea is on full display with her signature Ernie Ball six-string, too.

The model’s light weight and ergonomic shape was designed with female players in mind, while still being tonally beefy enough for fellow fuzz abuser Jack White to use it onstage.

As St. Vincent continues to re-write her own guitar rulebook she broadens the minds of many a mainstream pop fan in the process, proving that there is life in our beloved instrument yet.

Right now, you can save 16% when you order a 4 Pack of Ernie Ball Regular Slinky and/or Ernie Ball Super Slinky electric strings from Amazon.

Cyber Monday isn’t just about forking out hundreds of dollars on a new electric guitar, acoustic guitar or tube amp – there are also plenty of opportunities to save yourself some hard-earned cash on accessories.

Whether you’re stocking up on supplies or need some extra sets to refresh the collection over the holiday season, these Ernie Ball 4 Pack Amazon deals will save you plenty.

Currently celebrating their 60th anniversary, Ernie Ball's Slinky brand are an industry standard in electric guitar strings and have helped shape the sound of rock and roll.

Ernie Ball Super Slinky & Regular Slinky electric strings

More great Cyber Monday deals

• Amazon: Shop early Cyber Monday deals on guitars, mics & more
• Boss Amazon sale: Save on Katana, FX and more
• Fender Play: Save 50% on an annual guitar lessons subscription
• Guitar Center: Save 15% on select items over $199
• IK Multimedia: Save up to 85% on Max bundles
• Musician's Friend: Up to 50% off a huge range of music gear
• Native Instruments: Up to 75% off in their best Cyber Sale ever
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins from SoundToys, iZotope, SSL and more
• Positive Grid: Big Black Friday savings on BIAS and Spark
• Reverb: Up to 68% on select gear, plus deals on new and used items
• Sweetwater: Save big money - up to 80% - with their official Black Friday sale
• Thomann: The Cyber Week sale is here, with up to 60% off gear
• Waves: Shop the official Black Friday plugin sale – from $5.99

Born out of the California bolt-neck electric guitar tradition, Ernie Ball Music Man has nevertheless continued to strive for originality and innovation. It’s an attitude that has won over plenty of pro players, especially since the Ernie Ball company took the reins at Music Man back in 1984.

The new HT Series shows a company that’s still far from ready to rest on its laurels. As such, the Cutlass HT on review here might appear to be a familiar model, but it represents a significant shake-up for a modern classic from the Ernie Ball Music Man stable.

In one sense, the HT Series is all about the newly developed Music Man HT pickups, the result of 10 years of intensive R&D.

Along with them, though, EBMM has taken the opportunity to introduce new finishes and features to entirely distinguish the HT Series from the standard models of similar names, which still exist in the catalog (listing at $300 less than the HTs, it’s worth pointing out).

The Cutlass model is EBMM’s take on the classic asymmetrical-double-cutaway, bolt-neck model from Fullerton, with three single-coil pickups, vibrato and a 25 ½-inch scale length.

But even before these latest upgrades, the model displayed several clever twists that give it a personality all its own.

Among these, the body shape, while obviously inspired by the classic template, is clearly something a little different, too, streamlined and redrawn, with two knobs instead of three and a sleeker look to the EBMM tremolo bridge, in particular.

Our test sample looks particularly slick in its new Midnight Rider finish, a none-more-black regalia that displays a fine sparkly metallic layer amid the body finish, complemented by matte-black hardware and black plastics.

The solid alder body weighs in at around 8.2 pounds – just a little hefty for my tastes, for a guitar of this breed at least, although it’s no boat anchor.

The neck on the Cutlass HT represents a component long regarded as one of EBMM’s most innovative. The five-bolt attachment with sculpted heel, body-end truss-rod adjustment point, and four-plus-two headstock are joined by an extremely comfortable asymmetrical profile.

EBMM has been hip to roasted maple for several years, and this piece displays some subtle flame that helps it sit well with the body’s black finish and the ebony fingerboard, which carries another contemporary upgrade in its 22 stainless-steel frets.

Of course, a big part of what launches the Cutlass HT into the 21st century is found internally.

In addition to features new to this series, the model sports EBMM’s existing Silent Circuit, a hum-canceling network that nixes noise post-pickup while enabling the units themselves to remain proper single-coils.

And what single-coils they are.

Resulting from 10 years of guitar-string research at Ernie Ball, the new HT pickups are traditional electro-magnetic pickups in the broad sense, but they’re made with heat-treated (hence the HT in the name) pole pieces and large neodymium magnets for a bigger, tighter low end, extended highs and more output overall, without sacrificing a clean and balanced sound.

The bridge pickup is overwound with plain enamel wire (as used on the classic PAF humbucker, for example), for a thicker sound, while the neck and middle pickups are underwound using Formvar-coated wire as used on original S-style pickups, for a more traditional tone and response.

On top of all this, the Cutlass HT includes a transparent buffered output to retain signal integrity regardless of your volume control setting and long cable runs.

And, finally there’s the nifty internal boost circuit, engaged via a push-push switch on the volume control and powered by a nine-volt battery in a hatch around the back that requires no screwdriver for entry.

The boost circuit is preset at the factory for +12dB, but an internal trim-pot lets you lower that or raise it to as much as 20dB.

I tested the Cutlass HT through a Princeton Reverb tube amp combo and a Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini amp head with a 2x12 cab.

At its core, this guitar simply plays and sounds like a great, classic S-style guitar.

It might look a little different and carry several twists in the build and components departments, but close your eyes and dig into your favorite riffs from SRV, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Hendrix and other Stratocaster players and there’s nothing here to dissuade you from the authenticity of the experience.

In fact, engage that push-push boost on the volume pot – more of which to come – and you might even find yourself attaining some of these tones more easily than you do on many passive S-style guitars.

The HT pickups do indeed produce a clear, balanced, full-fidelity signal, but I feel it’s a mistake to come in with any preconceptions that they’ll be inherently modern or sterile. I found them extremely dynamic and expressive, and easily capable of doing anything I’d hope to achieve with this style of guitar, and more.

They’re also well balanced, with just enough added grunt from the bridge position to beef up the twang and sidestep the ice-pick treble, while attaining traditional tones.

Aligned with what I already said about the versatility in general, these HT pickups actually broaden the range of what can be achieved with this guitar, rather than hinder any efforts to attain classic or vintage tones.

The boost works very well and constitutes a significant bonus feature, adding a transparent, high-fidelity preamp into the chain at the press of a knob. At the preset +12dB, it’s a little much for a quick solo boost, knocking volume levels up significantly, but as an always-on feature, with the guitar’s volume control as the preamp gain, it adds a ton of range and flexibility.

Dialing the volume control down to about five or six achieves unity with the Cutlass HT’s unboosted levels, so if you start there, you’ve got a higher ceiling to work with as you wind it up for more bite, sting and drive.

Overall, if not an entirely new experience from the existing Cutlass SSS, the HT represents a significant upgrade and an advanced level of performance that plenty of players should really dig.

Specifications

• NUT: GraphTech, 1 5/8” wide
• NECK: Roasted maple
• FRETBOARD: Ebony, 25.5” scale, 10” radius
• FRETS: 22 high profile/medium width
• TUNERS: Schaller M6-IND locking
• BODY: Solid alder
• BRIDGE: Music Man modern tremolo with cover, bent-steel saddles
• PICKUPS: Three Music Man HT single-coils
• CONTROLS: Volume with push-push gain boost, tone, five-way switch
• FACTORY STRINGS: Ernie Ball M-Steel Hybrid Slinky .009–.046
• WEIGHT: 8.2 lbs
• BUILT: USA

Visit the Music Man website for more information.

Annie Clark is perhaps the most beguiling guitarist to emerge in the past 20 years.

The artist known as St. Vincent makes music that is a collision of adept, otherworldly guitar arrangements and propulsive electronica, a mix that has made her a leading light of the alt-rock movement’s genre-subverting strain.

A Berklee grad inspired to learn electric guitar by grunge acts like Nirvana and Soundgarden, Clark debuted her genre-bending approach on 2007’s Marry Me, kicking off a career that has had its fair share of success and critical acclaim. 

Her 2014 St. Vincent brought her a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album (the first won by a solo female artist in 20 years).

She seems poised to repeat that with her latest release, 2021’s Daddy’s Home. The Grammy-nominated album was recorded partly during lockdown and made with no expectations.

“It was truly just having so much fun playing music,” Clark says. “I’d go in and sing a song in my studio, just for fun, just, ‘Oh, I wonder how my voice is going to sound today,’ and the same with putting guitar parts down, just playing for fun and joy. That’s emblematic of the whole process.

“It’s not that any record is easy to make, because it’s not,” she adds. “But a lot of times the strife in the process is you getting in your own way and not some literal external force. It’s the ego games and self-loathing circus that gets in the way.”

That sort of effortlessness seems a hallmark of Clark’s career, including the creation of her Ernie Ball signature guitar. 

After visiting the company’s factory in spring 2015, she recalls, “I sat down with Sterling [Ball] and he said, ‘Why don’t you design a guitar?’ Really, the guitar that I drew up on that first day is very similar to what ended up making the final cut.

“There were definitely tweaks back and forth to make sure the ergonomics were correct – the balance was correct, to whittle down as much of the weight as possible without sacrificing the tone. I couldn’t believe that it was that easy. And with my vision and their skills combined, I think we made a really great guitar.”

Your music is diverse. How often are guitar parts the starting point for compositions?

Quite a lot of times. Melody, to me, is everything, and there are a lot of melodies that I dream up and transpose onto guitar that end up being riffs. At the moment, I can only really speak of my current writing process, but it’s very guitar-heavy. My emotional spectrum on the instrument has gotten broader.

You play with a lot of dynamism. You’re up and down the fretboard with quite a percussive approach. Do you make a conscious effort not to play guitaristic clichés or is it just your voice on guitar? How did your style crystalize?

I do try to shy away from the pitfalls of the poorly played blues guitar. I think, too, approaching the guitar from a melodic standpoint as a jumping-off point instead of relying solely on muscle memory – this might feel fun to play, but how does it sound?

The ear and the heart are king. It’s fun to riff on the classic stuff that every guitar player knows, but I get away from that in particular because there is John Lee Hooker and there is Howlin’ Wolf, and I don’t think that that’s where I need to add to the conversation.

The revered guitarist Tuck Andress is a relative of yours. Was he an early influence and, if so, what’s so interesting about him as a player that you admire?

Tuck’s my uncle and his influence on me is immense. I flatter myself to think that there is an actual genetic through-line to our playing – I mean, we’re obviously related and there are all manner of micro-movements that we might share.

Tuck’s a total genius and he can make an instrument sound like 10 people playing. The level of skill and discipline it took for him to become a one-man guitar symphony is staggering. I’ve never seen anybody play like he can play. He’s the eighth wonder of the world.

Tuck and Patti [his wife] took me out on tour with them when I was 15 years old, to Japan, and to be a 15-year-old kid from Tulsa growing up in Dallas, all of a sudden being in Japan, being their tour manager-slash-roadie, I got to see what it really meant to be a touring musician.

And I got to see how much their show moved the audience, myself included, and it encouraged me to fall so deeply in love with music. I did, and it’s never, ever let me down. It’s just the best thing.

Buy a copy of Daddy's Home here.

Since its Acquisition by Ernie Ball in 1984, Music Man has released an impressive number of star-endorsed models and attained a firm standing among the ranks of highly regarded, U.S.-made electric guitars.

Such was the intention of the company when it was founded in the 1970s, even if it didn’t entirely go that way at first. Details of Music Man’s early history, including ownership, design credits and who made what, remain confusing to many, and have occasionally been misrepresented over the years, but it’s not too hard to untangle the basic threads of how this groundbreaking Sabre I guitar came to be, well before Ernie Ball was in the picture.

When discussing Music Man’s early history, what grabs most guitar fanatics’ attention is Leo Fender’s involvement. In fact, the origins of the workshop that built these guitars goes back even further than the founding of Music Man, and dates directly to Leo’s stealthy post-Fender endeavors.

After selling the Fender Electric Instrument Co. to CBS at the end of ’64 and turning over the keys in early ’65, Leo was bound to a 10-year noncompete clause. But if he couldn’t manufacture and sell his own competing products, there was nothing wrong with developing ideas for future use, so in 1966 he founded CLF Research (for Clarence Leo Fender) for just that purpose.

In 1971, Fender’s former associates Tom Walker and Forrest White founded Tri-Sonic, which, after briefly operating as Musitek, changed its name to Music Man In 1974. That same year, the first Music Man amplifiers hit the market, and in 1975, with the expiration of his restrictions from the CBS deal, Leo came onboard as president.

While Walker’s branch of the operation was responsible for the amplifiers from the mid to late ’70s, CLF made the guitars. The StingRay guitar and bass were introduced in 1976, and the Sabre followed another year or so after.

The two six-string guitars grabbed some attention when they hit the market, but the uptake among professional musicians wasn’t much to write home about. The StingRay bass – whether by fluke or by intention – seemed to have been perfectly conceived for emerging sounds of the day and was an overnight success.

Legend has it Leo was designing his guitars and basses to be brighter and brighter through the ’60s and ’70s, largely because he was becoming hard of hearing. As a result, some players found the instruments a little harsh and shrill, but the StingRay bass landed just in time to ride the wave of bright, snappy slap-bass styles prominent in funk and disco of the era, and it became a latter-day classic as a result.

Music Man electric guitars and basses were arguably better made than the Fenders of the mid to late ’70s, and this perception of quality – and of being “Leo Fender’s latest creations” – helped propel them in the market. Music Man released the original Sabre I and Sabre II models around late 1977 and offered them until 1980 or so.

Other than the clearly Fender-derived body and headstock shapes, CLF engineering touchstones are seen in the three-bolt neck attachment with hex-key tilt adjustment point, and the “bullet” truss-rod adjustment nut at the headstock end. These had already become the calling cards of the less-loved Fender Stratocasters of the ’70s, but Leo was sticking with their veracity from a design standpoint, and they arguably made more sense on entirely new makes and models.

Otherwise, major innovations were found in the dual humbucking pickups; an onboard preamp that offered independent active bass, treble and volume controls, a bright switch, a phase switch, and a low-impedance output; and a patented new bridge design with a sustain-enhancing brass base and individually adjustable saddles.

The pickups were narrower than traditional Gibson humbuckers to allow more picking room, and the neck and bridge units were made different lengths to position the pole pieces more precisely beneath the strings. All that, and the Sabre came in two models, although only the necks were different: the I, seen here, had jumbo frets and a 12-inch fingerboard radius for contemporary rock players, and the II had narrower frets and a 7.5-inch radius “for comfortable, untiring, country-style fingering,” as the ads of the day stated.

Notable early Music Man guitarists are thin on the ground compared to the stars – including Pino Palladino, Flea, Cliff Williams and Kim Deal – who played the StingRay bass. German guitarist Carl Carlton played a StingRay guitar with Vitesse in the late ’70s before joining Mink DeVille and, later, Carl Palmer and Eric Burdon and the Animals. Alex Weir wielded white- and natural-finished Sabre I examples with the Brothers Johnson in the ’70s and then with Stop Making Sense-era Talking Heads, as seen in the Jonathan Demme-directed 1984 concert film of the same name.

If you lay your hands on a late-’70s Sabre, be aware that the active electronics and powerful, bright-leaning humbuckers can lead to harsh sounds when used injudiciously. But when used right, those same features allow everything from snappy funk and jangle for rhythm work to warm, rich, meaty girth for rock chunk and solos. It’s a powerful sound sculptor, and needs to be treated as such.

Leo Fender severed his Music Man connections around 1980 or so, and shortly after co-founded G&L with George Fullerton. Still keen on many of the design ideas he’d brought to the Music Man guitars, he ported several signature touches over to the early G&L efforts. Check out an early G&L F-100, for example, and you’ll find similar humbucking pickups, nearly identical active electronics, and the Leo-certified three-bolt neck attachment and “bullet” truss-rod nut.

String-and-accessories maker Ernie Ball took over Music Man in 1984 and spearheaded changes that helped the company live up to its potential. The amps were dropped, but a new guitar and bass lineup, improved quality control and a long list of star endorsements – including Edward Van Halen, Steve Morse, Keith Richards, Albert Lee, Steve Lukather and many others – were added, helping to ensure Music Man’s place in the pantheon of pro-grade electric-guitar makers.

On 17 September 1991, Guns N' Roses released their much-anticipated Use Your Illusion albums. This double dose of hard rock hit the shelves in tandem, immediately peaking at the top of the charts. Supported by the lead single "You Could Be Mine," Use Your Illusion II reached the number one spot while Use Your Illusion I followed closely behind at number two. Bolstered by a massive world tour, both albums would eventually go on to reach multi-platinum status.

Later that year, Guitar Player caught up with Slash to talk about the "blood, sweat, and tears" recordings. Here's what he had to say...

Rumor has it you’ve got a pretty righteous guitar collection.

About 50 guitars. I’m really a guitar freak. I spend money on what – snakes, guitars, and cars? I try not to spend too much on women. I keep everything in storage; I don’t take the really good shit out on the road because things get too banged up. There was a point when I had to take the guitar that I used for Appetite on the road, ‘cause it was the only guitar I had. Now, it’s beat to shit.

The ’59 repro?

Yeah, the hand-made yellow flame-top with zebra [Seymour Duncan] Alnico II pickups. For the first record, I must have gone through 10 guitars trying to find one I liked. And I couldn’t afford to buy some ridiculously expensive Les Paul. When our former manager showed up with this one, it became my main studio guitar.

Did you use it on “Sweet Child O’ Mine”?

Yeah. For almost everything on Appetite and then for most of the heavier songs on Use Your Illusion.

You used other guitars on this album?

Some fucking great guitars – a ’58 V and a ’58 Explorer. There’s a certain nasal sound you can hear on “Heaven’s Door,” “Locomotive,” and a couple of other songs – it’s almost [Michael] Schenker-sounding. That’s just the tone control on the V, no wah pedal. There were a couple of other guitars that people aren’t used to hearing me play. 

I used one of those small-scale Music Mans like Keith Richards has. There’s a Travis Bean that I use for slide on “Bad Obsession” [Illusion I]. When I first got into slide, I went to a Joe Perry Project show; he had a Travis Bean, and it sounded killer. So when I saw one in the paper, I bought it. It has a gorgeous mahogany body with this real subtle rainbow in the finish – it’s almost airbrushed. 

I played maybe 20 different guitars on Use You Illusion: a Strat, a Dobro, a 6-string bass, a banjo, some acoustics. But the sound that I’m recognized for is my Les Paul through a Marshall half-stack.

Will there ever be a Gibson Slash model?

At one point they had an idea for a Slash Les Paul. I gave them my best live guitar; they had it for six months, trying to get the weight and density and everything right. God bless the guys who worked on it, ‘cause they’re really cool, but they sent me four instruments and none of them sounded anywhere close to it. 

I’m sort of pissed off at Gibson, because in the six-odd years that I’ve been with them, I’ve only gotten three gold-tops that I can use live. And I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on old Gibsons. We just cannot seem to get a sound that I’m happy with from the new ones.

How do you set up to record?

For the basic tracks, I play with the band, using headphones; we’re all in one room. The main goal is to get the bass and drums down. It’s a great vibe and I wish I could record my final tracks that way, but I can’t. I need to be in my own studio – away from where the basic tracks are done – in the control booth. I don’t let anybody in from the band, if I can help it. 

On “Shotgun Blues” [Illusion II] Axl and some friends popped in, and I did the solo in one take. Sometimes you just want to fuckin’ jam in front of somebody. Usually no one was in the studio except for Mike [Clink, Producer] and Jim Mitchell, our engineer. That’s really my element. I love it.

What happens after the basic tracks?

I redo all my parts. There are a lot of guitars on the album. Izzy has only one guitar throughout the whole record; he comes out of the left speaker. He recorded most of his stuff during basic tracks. I did all the overdubs and harmonies, plus my regular rhythm track. There are a couple of songs, especially ones I wrote, where I beefed up the tracks over on Izzy’s side, ‘cause he’s got a particular sound that doesn’t necessarily…

…weigh as much.

Yeah, exactly. It falls out of balance. I did all that, the acoustics, and my other instruments in five weeks. For 27 songs, it was pretty quick.

Did you cut all your rhythm tracks and then do all the solos, or did you complete one song at a time?

Because there was so much material, I debated both approaches. But I ended up going in and doing the entire song. If there were four different parts on that song, I just get into it and do ‘em. Otherwise, even if you switch rhythm sounds for each song, you’d end up playing all your rhythms the same. You need to get into one song at a time, so when you go to the next one, it’s a whole different entity.

How do you set up for overdubs?

When I was doing my guitars, I stood out in front of the main monitors with Mike and the engineer. Just blasting as loud as possible.

Playing through the monitors, how did you get you trademark feedback?

That’s a major problem that I’ve been battling for a long time. Normally, you go out into the studio and stand in front of your Marshall. With headphones on you can’t even hear the tracks – I don’t know how people deal with it. 

Anyway, my techs came up with a trick. I bet them that it wouldn’t work. They set it up so that I was coming through the monitors and a MESA/Boogie [Mark III combo]. I had the monitor so loud that even though the Boogie was right in front of me, I could still hear the band and sit in the control room. I got a lot of feedback that way.

Did you have to stand in certain places?

I’d find a cool spot and put a piece of tape on the ground. Then girls would come down to the studio and hang out. I’d get in the next day and find these shapes on the floor where they’d had a ball with the tape. I was completely confused: “Where’s my spot?” Or somebody would come in and tidy up. I’m like, “Fuck, do not touch anything, leave everything alone!” I love things to be a complete disaster. 

For every beer we drank, we’d stick the label on the [control room] glass – we almost covered the whole thing. One day we got to the studio and the manager had cleaned up. The whole environment was shot – all the porn pictures were taken down.

For your Dobro and slide parts, did you play in standard or open tuning?

The Dobro in “You Ain’t The First” [Illusion I] is in standard tuning. I used something I picked up from Keith Richards for “Bad Obsession.” You take the low-E string off and just have five strings. That’s how I play it live, too, in open G [GDGBD, low to high]. I think those are the only slide tunings I used.

And the banjo in “Breakdown” [Illusion II]?

It was a 6-string banjo tuned like a guitar and played with a flatpick. I don’t know shit about real banjo.

Your classical guitar solo at the end of “Double Talkin’ Jive” [Illusion I] is poignant.

Thank you; I enjoyed doing it. That Ramirez was one of my better finds – expensive, but beautiful. It’s really satisfying to heat that the solo has some emotion. It was done pretty quick. Actually, I didn’t spend too much time on anything. It was always one or two takes, more or less. If the intonation was really off, Clink would tell me, and I’d go back and maybe punch in. 

But we never spent entire days on guitar solos. We’d take an entire day and do a whole song. Of course, for the really long songs, it would take two days to get all that shit right. But I’d like to think that it was more rock and roll than what most bands are doing these days.

What steel-string acoustics do you play on the album?

I have several Guilds – a nice 12-string and a couple of great big dreadnoughts. I used a Gibson J-100 too.

Do you use the same picks for electric guitar and acoustic guitar?

Yeah. I’m real simpleminded about that. I use the heaviest picks I can find for everything. I don’t believe in switching picks like people switch guitars. It would probably be worthwhile, especially for strumming an acoustic – a thin pick is definitely easier to use. 

Mine are purple [Dunlop] Tortex, really rigid. I have to work harder for certain subtle things: Sometimes when I get up the neck to play soft, I really have to pay attention to the pressure I’m putting on the strings to get the right sound, whereas with a light pick you can strum away. But I can’t be bothered to change. And I can’t be bothered with string gauges, either – I stick to Ernie Ball .010s and that’s that. I’m really simple when it comes to equipment. I don’t like to switch around too much.

Browse Guns N' Roses albums here.

Ernie Ball Music Man has released the Goldie, an updated version of St. Vincent's popular signature electric guitar.

The Goldie features an okoume body, a figured roasted maple neck, and a 22-stainless-steel-fret ebony fingerboard with custom St. Vincent inlays.

Though it retains the unusual body shape of its predecessor, the Goldie has been updated with a trio of newly-designed Ernie Ball Music Man gold foil mini humbuckers – controlled by a five-way pickup selector – a three-ply parchment pickguard that has been relocated underneath the pickups, a reverse headstock, and brass saddles.

Other features on the guitar include Schaller locking tuners, chrome hardware, parchment control knobs, and pearl tuning keys.

The Ernie Ball Music Man St. Vincent signature Goldie guitar is available now in three finishes – Cashmere, Silk Charmeuse, and Velveteen (which also comes with a rosewood fretboard) – for $2,999.

For more info on the guitar, stop by music-man.com.

Ernie Ball Music Man has unveiled 20th anniversary editions of John Petrucci's signature JP and Majesty guitars.

The 20th Anniversary Majesty and JP guitars both feature Honduran mahogany bodies, mahogany necks (bolt-on for the JP, neck-through on the Majesty) ebony fingerboards with gold acrylic JP/shield inlays, black and gold hardware, and laser-etched anniversary tremolo backplates.

Each of the limited-edition guitars also comes with an autographed certificate of authenticity.

“I can't believe it was 20 years ago that I first started talking to everybody at Ernie Ball Music Man,” Petrucci said in an interview with the company (which you can check out above). “I do remember really clearly what was going on at that time. I just had all these, sort of, design ideas and things that I wanted to do. 

“At the time, a dear friend of mine, Mark Snyder – who was my guitar tech had [said]: ‘If you want to play the greatest guitar ever, you've got to play a Music Man.'

“I can’t even express how proud I am of the success of my line of guitars with Ernie Ball Music Man, it blows my mind,” Petrucci continued. “I think the coolest thing about it is that we did it on our own terms. That commitment – from the first conversation I had with Sterling about creating guitars, that came from an authentic place.”

The Ernie Ball Music Man 20th Anniversary Majesty retails – in six- and seven-string editions – for $3,899 and $4,099, respectively, while the 20th Anniversary JP – also available in six- and seven-string incarnations – rings up at $3,799 and $3,999, respectively.

For more info on the guitars, stop by music-man.com.

First introduced in the 1970s, the Cutlass has stood the test of time as one of Music Man’s preeminent rock guitars. This latest Cutlass is designed in collaboration with Jason Richardson (Chelsea Grin, All That Remains) and is a six-string version of the Cutlass HH seven-string we reviewed in our October 2019 issue. 

The super-sleek guitar on deck here features an alder body with a buckeye-burl top and a roasted-maple neck wearing a hand-rubbed oil-and-wax finish and topped with a 25.5-inch-scale ebony fingerboard.  

The neck’s ultra-slim profile and flat 15-inch radius make for a playing surface that’s as fast as an F-16, and the 24 stainless-steel frets – with their perfectly shaped crowns, mirror polish, and rounded tips – add to the supersonic feel. 

There’s simply nothing to impede your hand here (although the corners of the nut are a little sharp), and ripping to the fretboard’s upper reaches is facilitated by the deep cutaway and rounded heel. The neck attaches very solidly with five bolts, and the truss-rod adjustment wheel is right at the end of the neck, making it easy to tweak the neck relief as needed. 

The Cutlass’s double-cutaway body is a work of art with its awesome Rorschach Red sunburst finish (also available in Natural Buckeye Burl) that fades to black around the edges and meets a binding strip of figured maple as it curves over to the red-finished contoured back. 

Gold hardware further dresses things up and includes tuners, control knobs, strap buttons, and the recessed Music Man Custom Tremolo floating bridge.

This well-crafted piece of machinery rides on two fulcrum points and features bent-steel saddles and a push-in bar. The strings top load through the back of the curved housing (itself a comfy place to lay your hand), and with three springs attached to the inertia block, the trem feels glass smooth and stays reliably in tune.

Kudos to the locking Schaller tuners, straight string pull, and slippery Melamine nut, all of which contribute to the stability of the system.

Our review Cutlass played beautifully, and its factory setup provided low action and tuneful intonation in all positions. 

The moisture-free woods and solid hardware give the Cutlass a lively and sustaining acoustic tone, and when amped up it delivered impressive sounds, whether played relatively clean through a Fender Deluxe Reverb or with heavy overdrive via a Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Badlander head through its onboard speaker IRs and a Celestion-loaded cabinet, as well as with a selection of overdrive pedals.

The direct-mounted Music Man humbuckers feed a master-volume control with a push-push 20dB volume boost, a master tone with push-push coil split, and a three-way toggle switch. There’s very little free wiring inside the control cavity, since most of the components are arranged on a PCB.

One internal trim pot adjusts the boost gain, and another adjusts the Silent Circuit gain for maximum effectiveness. Music Man doesn’t recommend altering it from the stock setting, nor was it necessary, as the Silent Circuit nukes noise very effectively.

The pickups sound crisp and well-defined, and their balance of bite, midrange complexity, and bottom-end girth is perfect. The neck pickup transitions smoothly from rhythm to lead as gain is increased (either from an amp or pedal), and it doesn’t get mushy or lose its touch responsiveness when the tone control is rolled down.

The bridge ’bucker is bright and ballsy, and it stayed well focused when using high levels of grind. The unboosted output is on par with a PAF, so you can drive an amp fairly hard and go right back to a clean sound by rolling down the volume. These pickups also have a twangier sound when they’re on together, which is useful when something besides a crushing rock or metal tone is needed.

In split-coil mode, the Cutlass does a good Strat impersonation, especially on the chimey middle setting, which sounds great for blues, R&B, and funk. The neck and bridge settings also benefit from the onboard boost when you want to hit the amp with a hotter signal to grind up a rhythm part or push a solo above the mix.

It all underscores the versatility of the Jason Richardson Signature Cutlass HH, which has a lot to offer those who want a slick-playing guitar with a ton of personality and tonal power. It’s expensive for sure, but you’ve got to hand it to Music Man for pulling out the stops to make the Cutlass HH a top gun in its class.

Specifications

• PRICE: $3,499 street, hardshell case included
• NUT WIDTH: 1.692”, black Melamine
• NECK: Roasted figured maple with 5-screw bolt-on joint
• FRETBOARD: Ebony, 25.5” scale, 15” radius. White dot position markers
• FRETS: 24 stainless-steel
• TUNERS: Schaller M6-IND locking
• BODY: Alder with buckeye-burl top
• BRIDGE: Music Man Custom Floating Tremolo
• PICKUPS: Two Music Man Custom Humbuckers
• CONTROLS: Master volume with push/push gain boost, master tone with push/push coil-tap, 3-way toggle switch
• EXTRAS: Active boost circuit with 20dB gain. Silent Circuit eliminates hum. 500 hours of 9-volt battery life
• FACTORY STRINGS: Ernie Ball Slinky, .010–.046
• WEIGHT: 7.3 lbs (as tested)
• BUILT: USA
• CONTACT: Ernie Ball Music Man

Ernie Ball has dipped its toes into the pedalboard power supply waters with its new Volt unit.

Smaller in size than a packet of the company's Slinky electric guitar strings, the Volt features five regulated 9/18V outputs, rated at 300mA each.

Each of the outputs features an LED indicator, complete electrical isolation, as well as thermal and short circuit protection. Additionally, multiple Volts can be daisy-chained together for greater power for your pedalboard.

The Ernie Ball Volt pedalboard power supply is available now – with a universal AC adaptor that includes interchangeable US, UK, EU, and China plugs – for $99.

For more info on the Volt, stop by ernieball.com.

Just weeks after he unveiled his latest signature Gibson Les Paul, the "Victoria," Slash has teamed up with Ernie Ball to create a limited-edition signature set of guitar strings.

The culmination of Ernie Ball's 30-plus-year relationship with the Guns N' Roses guitarist, the new 11-48-gauge Slinky strings feature the company's proprietary, corrosion-resisting Paradigm core string wrap, and are treated with Ernie Ball's Everlast nanotechnology, which aims to prevent tone-killing debris from collecting on the wire.

Finally, the strings are reinforced on the ball end with heavy duty RPS brass, to prevent string slippage.

The Ernie Ball Limited Edition Slash signature string set is available now – in packs of three in a metal string tin bearing Slash's logo and image – for $34.99.

For more info on the strings, stop by ernieball.com.

It’s hard to believe Steve Lukather has been consistently playing his namesake Music Man guitars since 1993. Although it was initially equipped with two single-coil pickups and one humbucker (HSS), in 2012 a twin-humbucking model designated the HH was added and has been available ever since. 

Lukather calls this signature model “a hybrid of an old Les Paul and great Strat,” which is on the mark for a guitar that feels so lively and vibrational, and is loaded with tone and playability-enhancing elements at every turn.  

Let’s start with the roasted, figured-maple neck with a soft V-shape that wears nothing but a thin finish of gunstock oil. This great-feeling stick is topped with a 12-inch-radius rosewood ’board carrying 22 polished, wide low-profile frets. 

Music Man has always sought to maintain a linear string path on its instruments, and the .009–.042 wires on our review guitar run ruler-straight over a superbly worked synthetic nut to the 4+2 arrangement of Schaller locking tuners.

At the south end, they load through the chunky brass inertia block of the Music Man custom vintage tremolo bridge, which is equipped with a push-in bar and resonance enhancing bent-steel saddles that are adjustable for height, tilt and intonation.

The LIII arrived with an expertly dialed-in setup that provided low, buzz-free action and kept things sounding musically in tune throughout the reaches of the fretboard. Also new are the humbucking pickups, which feature dissimilar magnets under the chrome covers – alnico poles in the bridge and ceramic in the neck positions.

The controls are volume and tone and a five-way blade switch that selects the following pickup configurations: Position 1 (closest to neck): Neck pickup, coils in series. Position 2: Both pickups, inside coils in parallel. Position 3: Neck and bridge pickups in parallel. Position 4: Both pickups, outside coils in parallel. Position 5: Bridge pickup, coils in series.

There is also a preamp in this guitar that provides a 12dB boost when the push-push volume knob is in its “up” position (power is supplied by a nine-volt battery housed in a compartment on the back). This handy feature lets you instantly lift a solo above the mix, and it adds to the already stout assortment of sounds that are on tap here.

Tested through a new Mesa/Boogie Mark 5:25 1x10 combo and Fender Deluxe Reverb, the LIII proved very capable of dishing out whatever is needed for the situation.

The tones are stellar on the neck pickup, offering nice sustain and a balanced response that sounded excellent in cleaner modes or when pushing into the Boogie set for a singing, Mark I-style solo tone.

Then there are the split-coil sounds from positions two and four, which are so rich and chiming that I couldn’t help going back to them again and again for funky rhythms and bluesy solos with a mild amount of distortion, à la Robert Cray.

The bridge humbucker, with its fat/bright response – which I assume has to do with the alnico poles – was just dynamite for everything from country twanging to heavily overdriven rock tones elicited by the Mesa’s Mark IIC+, IV and Extreme modes.

It was just as easy getting killer overdrive tones from the Deluxe turned up to four or so, and boosted with the Mesa Cleo pedal or by using the LIII’s onboard boost, which adds a little brightness to the sound and worked awesomely well with the sweet and slightly hollower timbres delivered in the LIII’s middle position with both humbuckers running. 

Our Fuchsia Sparkle LIII (also available in Bodhi Blue, Olive Pearl and Ocean Sparkle) is a tremendous guitar all around, with superb playability and ergonomics, a trem that feels butter smooth and keeps the tuning stable under hard workouts, and a range of tones that beg you to deploy it on practically any gig. 

It’s the result of a design that works for all the different applications that Steve Lukather encounters in his professional life as one of the hardest-working guitarists around. The LIII is simply fantastic and earns an Editors’ Pick Award.

Specifications

• PRICE: $2,549 street
• NUT WIDTH: 1.69”
• NECK: Figured roasted maple, five-bolt sculpted joint
• FRETBOARD: Rosewood, 25.5” scale with 12” radIus
• FRETS: 22 low-profile wide
• TUNERS: Schaller M6-IND locking
• BODY: Alder
• BRIDGE: Music Man floating vintage tremolo. Chrome plated, hardened steel with bent-steel saddles and push-in arm
• PICKUPS: Custom Music Man humbuckers with chrome covers (bridge alnico-magnet, neck ceramic-magnet). HSS version has same bridge humbucker and two Cutlass single-coil pickups
• CONTROLS: Volume (push-push for gain boost), tone (500 kΩ with .022uF capacitor)
• FACTORY STRINGS: Slinky .009–.042
• WEIGHT: 8.10 lbs (as tested)
• BUILT: USA
• CONTACT: Ernie Ball Music Man

Not too long after the unveiling of its nifty Pickholder straps, Ernie Ball has unveiled another new guitar strap collection, the Kashmir line.

A stylistic reinvention of "the world's number one polypro guitar strap," the Kashmir straps feature embroidered leather ends with a polypropylene webbing, and are fully adjustable. 

They can be made up to 72 inches long, and measure at two inches wide.

The Ernie Ball Kashmir straps feature a jacquard aesthetic in two looks, Sunset and Moonrise, and are available now for $24.99 each. 

For more info on the straps, head on over to ernieball.com.

Oh, guitar picks. Even easier to lose track of than socks!

Here to keep your guitar picks in one place, however, is Ernie Ball, which has introduced the nifty new Pickholder guitar strap.

The Pickholder strap boasts a fully-adjustable polypro design with an extended leather end that houses up to three guitar picks on the strap's lower front end.

Additionally, the strap's leather ends are embroidered-on two-inch wide polypropylene webbing for additional durability and strength.

Ernie Ball's Pickholder Straps are available now for $9.99 in a wide range of colors - including burgundy, rainbow, black and white - with lengths ranging from 41 to 72 inches.

For more info on the straps, stop by ernieball.com.

Ernie Ball Music Man has launched the 2020 editions of its line of John Petrucci signature guitars. 

Changes for 2020 include a number of sleek-looking new finishes for the Majesty, JP15 and JP maple top guitars.

“I am extremely proud and very excited to introduce the new Majesty and JP15 colors for 2020," Petrucci said in a press release. "Every year the incredibly talented team over at Ernie Ball Music Man dream up the most unique and stunning finishes that take my signature guitars to new artistic heights.

"The sleek, performance-centric design of the Majesty and the unrelenting powerhouse attitude of the JP15, both outfitted with my signature DiMarzio pickups, make them two models that are so creatively inspiring that I just can’t put them down once I start playing them. 

"From the visionary lines to the incredible feel, beautiful surfaces and epic tones, they are the ultimate musical machines one can ever dream of experiencing. These brand-new 2020 colors and finishes will continue to propel the Majesty and the JP15 far into the guitar universe for years to come.”

You can learn more about each of the guitars below.

Majesty

The Majesty features a flamed maple shield within a lightweight Okoume body, with a translucent finish on the front and back.

Sonically, the guitar features Petrucci's signature DiMarzio Dreamcatcher (bridge) and Rainmaker (neck) pickups, combined with an onboard piezo bridge system. This year, the Majesty is available in four new finishes: Pink Sand, Red Phoenix, Smoked Pearl and Ember Glow. 

The Ernie Ball Music Man 2020 Majesty is available now, with prices starting at $2999.

Purple Nebula Majesty

The new Purple Nebula Majesty features a three-piece neck constructed with two strips of Honduran mahogany and a center strip of flamed maple, accented by a translucent burst finish.

The guitar's body features a carved, highly figured quilt maple top over alder sides and a neck-through center of mahogany and maple.

Sonically, the guitar features Petrucci's signature DiMarzio Dreamcatcher (bridge) and Rainmaker (neck) pickups, combined with an onboard piezo bridge system.

The guitar is available as either a 6-string or 7-string - in a limited run of only 200 guitars worldwide - and will be accompanied by a backplate signed by Petrucci, plus a numbered certificate of authenticity.

The Purple Nebula Majesty is available now, with prices starting at $5299.

JP15 

The 2020 JP15 features a lightweight Okoume body with a figured maple top, and a figured roasted maple neck and fingerboard.

Sonically, the guitar features twin custom DiMarzio Illuminator pickups, a piezo bridge system and an onboard 20db gain boost.

The JP15 - complete with a new Cerulean Paradise finish - is available in 6-string or 7-string iterations with an Ernie Ball Music Man JP tremolo, a 3-way toggle pickup selector and an Ernie Ball Music Man hardshell case. 

The 2020 JP15 is available now, with prices starting at $3249.

JP Maple Top

The JP maple top features an alder body with a mahogany tone block and figured maple top, plus a Honduran mahogany neck with an East Indian rosewood fingerboard. 

In the sonic department, it features DiMarzio Liquifire & Crunch Lab pickups, a piezo bridge system and a coil-splitting tone pot. 

It's available in 6- or 7-string incarnations with a Music Man JP tremolo, a 3-way toggle pickup selector and an Ernie Ball Music Man hardshell case. The Koa Top option includes a Mahogany body and neck with an ebony fretboard. 

The 2020 JP maple top is available now, in a Dragon Blood finish, with prices starting at $3249.

If you’ve ever dreamed of a guitar that weaves together the best parts of a Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson Les Paul, you’ll surely want to check out the new Ernie Ball Music Man Sabre.

Like many a Strat, the Sabre has a 25.5-inch scale-length fretboard, strings that travel in straight lines to their respective tuners (minimizing friction at the nut), a vibrato bridge, bent-steel string saddles, a double-cutaway body (with a backside comfort cut where it hits your ribs) and a diagonally mounted five-position pickup selector. But then, like many a Les Paul, the Sabre offers dual humbuckers, boosted tension on the higher strings (due to their tuners being closer to the nut), a wide-radius fretboard and a 3 /8ths-inch thick contoured and bound flame-maple top.

Related only in name to the Sabre that Music Man offered in the late ’70s and early ’80s, this new Sabre is available in four schemes — a range that spans the shimmering Honey Suckle model (lemon burst with chrome hardware) to the decidedly more lethal-looking Cobra model reviewed here.

I dig how the Cobra’s dusky hues and obsidian-black hardware team up to project a dangerous rock vibe. The vibrato arm, pickup covers and bridge cover (which makes a nice palm rest) are actually matte finished. They’re so black and gloss-less they look and feel like they survived the fires of hell.

Pick up the Sabre and the first thing you’ll likely notice is the zippy feel of its slender neck. The simple oil and wax polish on this sculpted hunk of roasted maple is nothing short of superb, as it delivers that coveted ultra-smooth (but non-sweaty) gigged-on-for-decades feel.

However, with its shallow C cut, the Sabre neck is thin, so if you’re used to mid-size neck profiles or thicker, it may feel a bit scrawny, particularly near the nut. Measuring with a caliper, I found the strings to be closer together at the nut than on an ’08 Stratocaster and ’03 Telecaster, and about the same width apart as the strings are at the nut on an ’01 Les Paul.

Interestingly, as is the case on other Ernie Ball Music Man double-cutaways, the Sabre’s strings splay outward enough that they’re slightly farther apart at the bridge than they are on those other three guitars I just mentioned. If you use hybrid picking, you’ll likely be a fan of this “fan,” because by the time the strings reach your pick-hand fingers, there’s plenty of plucking room.

So far, I have performed four Jefferson Starship concerts with the Sabre, running it through either rented Fender Hot Rod DeVille 212 combos or a Gilman Mamba head and cabinet. From the very first soundcheck, I’ve been impressed by how confidently this guitar sings onstage, and I haven’t stumbled upon a single dead spot anywhere on the neck. I credit that boosted sustain not only to the guitar’s great materials and solid construction but also, perhaps, to having its pickups mounted directly on the body in the superstrat tradition.

From aggressive bridge-pickup lead timbres to creamy, Clapton-esque tone-knob-all-the-way-down “woman” settings, the Sabre is a versatile tone tool. The two in-between sounds — positions 2 and 4 on the selector — are great, too, and serve up either the two outside or two inside coils of the pickup pair, respectively. When playing clean, these settings are noticeably lower in output than what the full-humbucker sounds deliver, but a little compression — or a lot of distortion — evens things up nicely.

After my first gig with the Sabre I swapped its .010 string set for a set of .009s. It could be my imagination, but with the Sabre’s bridge set non-floating (and with zero give during string bends), a .009–.042 set seems to offer more string tension on this instrument than it might on other 25.5-inch-scale guitars, making bends more satisfying. Must be due to that tried-and-true, four-plus-two Music Man tuner arrangement!

The only other accoutrement I’d consider swapping out on this instrument is the volume pot. Call me finicky, but, being a player who rides the volume quite a bit (to clean things up in overdrive situations), I prefer a pot with a more linear taper in the lowest range, because when this Sabre’s knob nears zero, the signal suddenly seems to fall off a cliff into silence.

Overall, I am so thrilled with the Sabre’s playability and versatility that, well, I ain’t done with it yet! When possible, I enjoy the convenience of traveling with just one guitar, and this guitar does just about everything I need it to do — from surf-adelic humbucker-through-reverb-tank textures to searing hot solo sounds to whammy-bar mayhem. I plan to take it on the next run of shows. As you can undoubtedly tell from my enthusiasm for it, the Ernie Ball Music Man Sabre easily earns our Editors’ Pick award.

Specifications

CONTACT music-man.com
PRICE $3,199 street, hardshell Music Man case included

NECK Roasted maple
NUT WIDTH 1 11/16”
FRETBOARD Maple, rosewood or ebony; 25.5”-scale, 10”-radius
FRETS 22 high-profile medium-width stainless steel
TUNERS Schaller locking
BODY Polyester-finished maple-bound flame-maple-topped Okoume
BRIDGE Music Man fulcrum tremolo with bent-steel saddles, cover
PICKUPS wo Music Man custom-wound ceramic-magnet humbuckers
CONTROLS Master volume and tone, 5-way blade selector
FACTORY STRINGS Ernie Ball 2240 Regular Slinky RPS .010-.046
WEIGHT 7.5 lbs
BUILT USA