Seymour Duncan has launched its new Rail Series of pickups, with fan favorites redesigned with modern-minded rails.

The extensive collection rebuilds its JB, Jazz, Hot Rodded sets, and the metal staple Nazgûl and Sentient pickup set, with magnetic rails instead of pole pieces.

Rail-style pickups are designed so that strings never leave the magnetic field when bent, and to counter string spacing issues some pole piece designs are met with.

Importantly, Seymour Duncan has kept the tonal recipe of each pickup the same, but adds that the rail pickups offer greater “clarity, tightness, and sustain,” compared to their progenitors. This, it says, means the Rail Series pickups can shine in high-gain settings.

Seymour Duncan’s JB pickups feature in Jackson’s new American Series Virtuoso and “race car guitar” Soloist SL3, and return in a new format while keeping their “full low end, crisp highs, and upper midrange bump.” The rails have helped accentuate their attack, with the Jazz Rails similarly complimenting its “glassy treble response” with a better string-to-string balance.

The Hot Rodded set pairs a JB (SH-4) and Jazz (SH-2) pickup for a versatile set up ready to crunch and scream through high-gain tones.

For modern metal players, the Nazgûl and Sentient humbucker set – bridge and neck pickups respectively – is a tireless old faithful. Seymour Duncan says the classic pairing now benefits from a more focused low-end and extra precise sustain in the rail format.

“Together,” it says, “the Nazgûl Sentient Rails Set offers blistering highs, cutting mids, and precise bass, capturing the essence of modern metal.”

Of the Rail Series, the pickup pros say they deliver “the revered characteristics of our originals while infusing them with the clarity, tightness, and sustain of rail design.”

The release comes just after its latest collaboration with Billy Gibbons, which has seen the duo recreate his Red Devil Strat pickup for Telecasters and add extra power and sizzle to his Pearly Gate Humbuckers, designed to replicate the magic of his 1959 Les Paul, "Pearly Gates".

The Seymour Duncan Rail Series is available now, with each pickup available for six- and seven-string guitars. Prices start at $119.

Visit Seymour Duncan to learn more.

It’s double trouble for the ever-cool Billy Gibbons as Seymour Duncan announces the release of a signature Telecaster bridge pickup and a hotter humbucker set for the guitarist.

The Hades Gates humbucker and the Red Devil for Tele sets have been crafted to cover all bases of Gibbons’ sizzling blues tones, with a tight focus on “tight harmonics and thick rhythms,” with the former turning single coil Tele bridges into faux humbuckers via a handy drop-in installation.

The devilish Tele set follows on from the pair’s original Red Devil set, designed to be loaded into Fender Stratocasters craving a little ZZ Top bite.

Speaking of the success of that pickup, he said it left Telecaster and Esquire players craving “that gargantuan sound,” and so he’s reignited his ‘Duncan collaboration to meet their needs – as well as his own.

And so that recipe has now been tailored to drop into single coil Telecasters, which feels a natural progression for a guitarist who loves both classic Fenders in equal measure.

The Reverend Willie G approved pickup matches an Alnico 5 magnet with a four-conductor cable, and a “hot wind” to drive amplifiers and pedals harder than a traditional vintage humbucker, despite its single coil presentation.

Says Gibbons: “I like the twank of a Telecaster and the beef of a humbucker, and right here you get a little bit of both. It fattens up the bottom end, and you eliminate hum.

“It doesn't require any drilling,” he adds. “Just pop it into your instrument and tear it up.”

The Hades Gates humbucker pairing, meanwhile, is inspired by Gibbons’ love for heat – itself shown through his fuzz-addled lead playing and his range of hot sauces.

Based on the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup set found in his beloved 1959 Gibson Les Paul, Seymour Duncan has injected a little more output into the P.A.F ‘buckers at Gibbons’ request.

An extra hot wind persists here too, resulting in what Seymour Duncan calls “a fiery take on the mid-forward, punchy sound” the bearded riff wizard is known for.

Its Alnico 2 magnets help drive amps into “hot, blue, and righteous territory.” They are hand-built in Santa Barbara, California with a four-conductor cable and short mounting legs.

“Seymour Duncan took the Pearly Gates pickups and gave them an extra bump,” Gibbons explains, meaning guitars equipped with them will “stand up and bark.”

“When on stage, the essence of cutting through relies on what emanates from the source,” he continues. “It would be fair to say that's the heart of what makes it sound so good. It's really what it takes to differentiate this to ‘wow...I want that.’”

Gibbons' "Pearly Gates" Les Paul, acquired in 1968 just as ZZ Top was kicking into gear, has been by the guitarist's side for more than 55 years, writing itself into folklore as it was employed across the band's hugely successful records.

“You gotta have the right guns when you enter the town of tone,” the Texan bluesman once told Guitar Player. “I’ve spent plenty of money putting together a collection of guitars attempting to find something to replicate Pearly, and it just hasn’t happened yet.”

The Seymour Duncan Red Devil for Tele bridge pickup costs $129, and the Hades Gates set costs start at $129 each or $258 for a set, depending on which finish players opt for.

Visit Seymour Duncan to view the full range.

Seymour Duncan has released two sets of Antiquity guitar strings, representing a “perfectly voiced companion” to its Antiquity series of pickups.

The argument the company is trying to make is that, while players can buy vintage guitars and amps, and install the preferred pickups of yesteryear, string choices can be just as influential in achieving that sought-after, bygone tone.

The new, historically crafted string set, then, it says, “gives musicians access to the true vintage tone of the most infamous guitars ever produced.”

It’s a bold claim adding to a hugely competitive vintage market, but the pickup manufacturer has turned to the history books to create the series.

As Seymour Duncan explains, pure nickel strings were commonplace on electric guitars before the rise of their nickel-alloy plated successors, and so it has returned to that recipe.

“Their rich, warm tone became a crucial ingredient to the sounds of classic blues and rock & roll,” says Seymour Duncan.

It adds that pure nickel wraps boast longer lifespans and deliver a “more consistent tone between string changes, bringing you even closer to the sound of electric guitar’s early heyday.”

The string sets are available in modern gauges, so as to not completely turn its back on contemporary player needs. That means 9s (extra light) and 10s (light) sets are available.

The 9s set comprises: .9, .11, .16, .24, .32, .42.

For players wanting a little more thickness, the 10s set is: .10, .13, .17, .26, .36, .46.

Each set costs $9.99. At the time of writing, sets are not available in discounted bulk quantities.

The veteran pickup builder's creations can be found in the guitars of Slash, Jennifer Batten, Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, and countless others, with its wide-ranging Antiquity line focusing on modern creations for lovers of vintage tones.

Visit Seymour Duncan to learn more about the Antiquity string sets.

One of Adrian Belew’’s most famed Stratocasters wasn’t relic’d through years of touring like you'd think – it was a DIY cosmetic job to fix what the veteran guitarist deemed to be an ugly guitar. 

Speaking in the new issue of Guitar World, the former King Crimson guitarist explains how pickup maker Seymour Duncan essentially abused its now-adored relic’d finish out of the 1969 Stratocaster after he’d bought the instrument for a bargain price. 

“I went to a local used guitar store and was poking around,” Belew remembers. “And in the back they had this kinda ugly Stratocaster hanging on the wall – like a brown sunburst. I said, ‘How much for this one?’ They said, ‘It doesn’t have a case, so we’ll give it to you for $285.’ A pretty good buy, I thought.”

The guitar would later star, alongside Belew, on the front cover of Guitar World magazine, but not before Duncan helped fix its less-than-desirable brown finish in a slightly brutal fashion. 

“I called up Seymour when I was back out in California, and I said, ‘What am I gonna do? I have this ugly-ass guitar.’ He said, ‘I know what to do.’ He got in the trunk of his car and took out all these things – files and a screwdriver and spray paint and lighter fluid.

“He laid it on the lawn, and before I could say anything, he took the lighter fluid out and squirted it on the face of the guitar and set it on fire,” Belew continues. “I said, ‘Well, I guess I’m committed now!’

“Then he went to work. He dragged it through the grass. He sanded the back of the neck and put motor oil on it. He took screwdrivers and things and chipped some of the stuff off of it. I did the spray paint – a few bits here and there.”

“This is what I used on Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti, Bowie’s Lodger, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, and in my early days with King Crimson. I’m holding it on the cover of Lone Rhino,” he later told Guitar Player of the “beat to heck” Strat.   

Relic’d guitars have become highly sought after in recent years, with a number of off-the-shelf guitars imitating road-worn finishes. 

Fender has meticulously recreated Joe Strummer’s time-ravaged Esquire, and Monty's Guitars has even made a wax to help relic unfinished bodies and fretboards as firms jump on the trend. 

Gibson's Murphy Lab unveiled its first round of relic'd guitars in 2021, and, most recently, recreated Jason Isbell and Ed King's 'Red Eye' Les Paul for a limited, relic'd run. 

Still, as impressive as those creations are, there’s something more appealing about the idea of creating body blemishes and beyond yourself. 

Rory Gallagher’s Stratocaster wouldn’t be the same without its relic’d body, but it also wouldn’t have been the same if he bought it from a guitar store in that condition – the guitar has personality and history.    

Belew seems to echo that sentiment, adding: “I’m gonna be bold and say that might be the first relic’d guitar, and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that.”

“Do you remember when you got your magic Les Paul?”

So asked Andy Ellis of Peter Green in the November 2000 issue of Guitar Player. The guitar in question was none other than Green’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, a legendary instrument that the Fleetwood Mac founder used to write and record many of the group’s seminal blues cuts, including “Black Magic Woman,” “Oh Well” and “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown).”

Green’s Les Paul was considered “magic” for its out-of-phase sound, a nasal tonality missing from the typical Les Paul repertoire. 

Oddly, Green didn’t think much of the assessment.

“I never had a magic one,” he replied to Ellis. “Mine wasn’t magical... It might have looked similar to others from a distance, but it was an old-fashioned one with a funny-shaped neck – a kind of semicircle neck. It just barely worked. The pickups were strong, but I took one of them off. I copied Eric [Clapton]. 

"I heard him play one night, and he was on the treble pickup all night long. It sounded so good, I thought I’d take my bass pickup off altogether. Try and wait for the same luck. As if it was luck! It takes a lot of genuine practice and worry to get a sound like that.” 

ELLIS: But judging from all the Fleetwood Mac photographs, you must have put the pickup back on your Les Paul.

GREEN: I put it back on the wrong way around so that the poles – the pickup screws – were facing in the opposite direction. People would say to me, “You got that special out-of-phase sound.” I don’t know what out-of-phase is. Phase for what? Phase – it sounds like a good name for a group. 

Mind you, it didn’t make any difference to me. People would say that I got a special sound and try to force me to agree, but I don’t think so.

As it happened, Ellis already knew the “secret” behind the sound of Green’s Les Paul. In 1994, he’d approached Jol Dantzig, then with Hamer Guitars, to have him build a custom dual-humbucker guitar inspired by Green’s Les Paul. Ellis told the story in the same issue in which his Peter Green interview appeared. 

By the time of his visit to Dantzig, Green’s Les Paul had long been the main instrument of Gary Moore, who had befriended Green in the late '60s and purchased the guitar from him a few years later, in the early '70s. 

“As we discussed the wiring possibilities,” Ellis wrote, “Dantzig recalled that Gary Moore stopped by the Hamer factory in the early '80s with Green’s Les Paul.

“I asked if I could check out the wiring," remembered Dantzig, "and I carefully examined the pickups and their controls. Everything looked totally stock – the pickups were wired in phase – but I knew they didn’t sound stock when played together. 

“I used a compass to measure the pickups’ magnetic polarity. I discovered that one magnet was oriented north-to-south while the other was oriented south-to-north. The pickups were magnetically out of phase – this was the secret we’d all been searching for!"

“Dantzig agreed to incorporate magnetically out-of-phase pickups and reverse the neck pickup in the custom Hamer,” Ellis continued. “I sent a pair of Antiquity humbuckers to Seymour Duncan, requesting that he flip the magnet on one. Before I could explain why, Duncan said, ‘Ahh – you want the Peter Green mod.’”

So did the wiring replicate Green’s nasal tone? The answer, Ellis said, was an unequivocal yes. 

“In a dual-pickup setting where each humbucker has its own volume pot, you can bleed the relative phase shift to create timbres ranging from a piercing howl to a subtle treble boost.”

But as Ellis points out, the resulting tone isn’t the same that you get from wiring humbuckers out of phase. It seems that magnetically out-of-phase pickups are responsive to pitch, creating an entirely different sort of sound. 

“Oddly, the resulting sound is sweeter and more musical than what you get from wiring humbuckers out of phase,” Ellis writes. “Magnetically generated phase shift seems to respond to pitch changes – the higher the note, the more pronounced the effect. Chords and bass notes don’t have the thin, shrill sound of out-of-phase wiring, yet high notes played on the top strings have a pronounced hollow cry.”

In the years since Ellis wrote his story, Green’s guitar changed hands several times. Moore sold the guitar in 2006 for financial reasons. It eventually ended up in the hands of Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, who purchased it in 2014. 

In celebration of Frank Zappa's birthday this week, we take a look back at some of the guitarist's choice amps and axes, courtesy of Dweezil Zappa.

The following is taken from the GP archives...

“Considering Frank rarely used anything stock, it’s difficult to ape his tones,” says Dweezil Zappa, who tries the best he can to get close to his old man’s sonic deviancy on the Zappa Plays Zappa Tour.

“For the most part, it’s really about having the right midrange, and being able to get controllable feedback at will. Frank devised a way to make that happen by fitting his guitars with onboard preamps that put drastic EQ control at his fingertips, and kicked out a ridiculous amount of boost – up to 18dB. 

"Frank really loved screwing around with stuff, and making it work for him and the way he played.”

Dweezil kindly gave us access to several of his father’s guitars and amps – which we’ve presented here with as much detail as possible, given the fact that mysteries still remain about some aspects of these instruments.

Pignose Amp

This is the Pignose amplifier that was responsible for the bulk of the nasty guitar tones found on the Apostrophe(’) and Over-Nite Sensation albums. 

This little piggy couldn’t escape modification, as evidenced by the two XLR jacks on the back. 

Zappa appeared on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976, where he can be seen walking onstage to perform “Black Napkins” with this Pignose in one hand and the “Baby Snakes” SG in the other.

“Baby Snakes” Gibson SG

The “Baby Snakes” SG was Zappa’s main guitar for the latter part of the Seventies. The guitar is not actually a Gibson but rather the creation of “a guy in Phoenix,” who made his way backstage and sold the guitar to Zappa for $500. 

Though its feel is a lot like that of a Gibson SG, closer inspection reveals such non-Gibson details as a 23rd fret and some nifty inlays and ornamental woodwork.

Luthier/electronics maker Rex Bogue – the man who Zappa also tasked to bring Hendrix’s charred Miami Pop Festival Strat back to life – added various delights to this guitar, such as phase switches and an onboard preamp (Bogue passed away in 1996).

Mid-Seventies 100-watt Marshall JMP

This stock, mid-Seventies 100-watt Marshall JMP head was a mainstay in Zappa’s setup from 1974 on through the 1979-84 tours.

Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster

This ES-5 Switchmaster was used on the first three Mothers of Invention records. We also know that Frank plugged it into a Fender Deluxe for the album Freak Out!

He had the portly, knob-festooned jazz box later outfitted with Barcus Berry pickups and even more switches and knobs that, according to Dweezil, are no longer functioning.

Gibson Les Paul Custom

Pictured on the Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar cover, this Les Paul Custom is loaded with Seymour Duncan humbuckers and has been outfitted with a Dan Armstrong Green Ringer circuit (which was installed in the control cavity) and an XLR output jack. 

An extra knob located in the midst of the stock controls is a nine-position rotary switch that allows for single-coil/humbucker and out-of-phase options. The mini-toggle switch selects between series and parallel operation.

“Roxy” SG

This is the same guitar used and pictured on the 1974 Roxy & Elsewhere album. 

Though the two non-stock switches on the guitar’s lower horn were present in the Roxy era, the guitar has been augmented since those days with a mirrored top and various preamps, phasing switches, and active-filter circuits.

Martin D-18S 12-fret “Standard” Dreadnought

Martin’s Dick Boak helped us identify this acoustic guitar, which is a D-18S 12-fret “standard” Dreadnought with a slotted headstock, Brazilian rosewood fretboard, headplate, and bridge, and mahogany back and sides. 

It was used on the 1974 recording of “Sleep Dirt” and the tune “Blessed Relief” from The Grand Wazoo. 

Zappa traded a Telecaster to get the Martin from its owner, Mark Volman (a.k.a “Flo”), from Zappa’s early Seventies "Flo and Eddie" lineup.

Performance Guitar

Used on Frank’s last tour, in 1988, this custom-made Performance solidbody sports concentric knobs along with tiny screwdriver-adjustable trimpots to accommodate the tone tweaking Zappa was so fond of.

“The trimpots are identical parametric filter circuits,” Zappa’s tech, Midget Sloatman, told GP in 1995. “One trimpot is dedicated to bass frequencies from about 50Hz to 2kHz, and the other one affects the top-end frequencies from about 500Hz up to 20kHz. 

"The filters also featured a variable resonant frequency [or ‘Q’] knob that allowed Frank to control the feedback characteristics of his rig in any hall. He could basically tune his guitar to the room, determine how the room responded to the amplifier, and then use the Q control to elicit the feedback he wanted.

“Frank also used the active filters to emphasize the highs in the 4k-to-8k range in order to bring out the nuances of the strings."

Jimi Hendrix Sunburst Fender Stratocaster

Given to Zappa by a Hendrix roadie, this formerly sunburst Stratocaster was mutilated by Hendrix at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. 

Zappa had it hanging on a wall in his basement for years until Rex Bogue put it back together with Zappa-approved electronic delights, such as a Dan Armstrong Green Ringer and a Barcus-Berry contact pickup buried in its original replacement neck! This neck, however, is a fairly new addition, as is the tortoise-shell pickguard.

Dweezil shows the guitar and talks about it in the video below provided by Norman’s Rare Guitars.

Some things – the Porsche 911 GT3 comes to mind – just plain look fast. Others – like the tail of a scorpion – look obviously dangerous.

Then there are those objects that exude both those qualities. In the world of electric guitars, one such fast and dangerous object is the new Jackson American Series Soloist SL3.

Rigged with a locking nut and two dozen thick, slippery nickel rails, its speedy neck dares you to, sonically speaking, burn rubber as fast as you can up and down its ebony dragstrip of a fretboard.

Meanwhile, the guitar’s menacing, backward-angled headstock is so pointy, you’d almost expect a drop of venom to be dangling from it. (Bandmates beware!)

Until September of this year, you could only get Jackson Soloists as imports – or, if you had extra money and time, you could custom order one from Jackson’s California shop. (Currently, custom order fulfillment is taking Jackson up to 18 months.)

But that whole situation has changed.

Impressed by Jackson’s strong performance the past few years, Andy Mooney (CEO of Fender, Jackson’s parent company) challenged the specialty brand to come up with a production model that would put American-built Jacksons in the hands of shred guitar lovers everywhere.

The first model off this new line (built in Corona, California) is the new SL3, a top-gun shred machine built for the (slightly well-heeled) masses.

If you’ve never rocked a Soloist before, one of the first questions to ask yourself is, “Am I – or can I be – a neck-through-body player?”

Some die-hard bolt-on devotees maintain that while through-body or set necks may sound fuller and even offer more sustain, they lack some of the snappy midrange delivered by a neck held to the body by mere bolts.

While the juicy, distortion-friendly Seymour Duncan JB bridge humbucker is the star of the SL3’s pickup party, after a month running the guitar both clean and dirty through EL34-powered Mesa/ Boogie and Marshall heads, as well as into a coffee-table-friendly Yamaha THR10 modeling amp, I was impressed by the spankiness of the Stratocaster-style sounds called in via positions 2 (bridge plus middle pickups) and 4 (middle plus neck) on the guitar’s five-way selector. I also vibed well with the round, fluty sound of position 5 (neck).

What may be most striking about the SL3’s three-piece maple neck, though, is its rigidity. Maybe it’s the internal graphite shafts that flank the truss rod, but this neck just won’t bend.

In other words, pushing hard on the back of the SL3’s headstock in no way causes ringing strings to drift flat the way they would on a Stratocaster or Les Paul. (Careful with your Pauls, people – Slash once exploded a Les Paul-style headstock trying to get vibrato this way.)

I like this trait – it means that, although the Jackson headstock is angled back like a Paul’s, it’s less delicate. Of course, the SL3’s stiffness is less notable when you’re playing the guitar conventionally, but it contributes to the guitar’s very fast, very enjoyable zero-wasted-energy playing feel.

Other things you may notice about the new Soloist’s neck: There’s no more truss-rod cover behind the nut (yay!) because the rod is now instantly adjustable via a wheel at the neck heel. Just insert the narrower of the two onboard hex wrenches mounted behind the headstock (another new feature) into one of the wheel’s holes and turn slightly.

And while you’re behind the headstock, dig how Jackson has included a convenience atypical of locking-nut guitars – locking tuners! (I guess this guitar’s “Fast as F***” tagline is meant to apply not just to its playability but also to string changes.)

Back to those wrenches. Really, any narrow enough metal rod can be used to turn the truss wheel. The wrenches’ main application, of course, is for use with the Floyd Rose 1500 locking bridge and nut.

Some Floyd Rose cognoscenti may complain that the base plate isn’t cast steel, like those of the German-made Floyds, but the Korean-made 1500 (which is a bent-steel plate) has a worthy competitor – its specs are virtually identical to the German one, the molds are apparently newer and more accurate, it’s more affordable, and, in my experience with the SL3, works flawlessly and should keep up just fine with other Floyds, longevity-wise.

And not only are the 1500’s stainless-steel bridge and nut clamping bolts corrosion resistant, their metallic hue just plain looks cool, especially in contrast to the otherwise all-black Floyd hardware.

For those who play a lot of different styles, it’s not impossible to imagine a folk singer somewhere (perhaps ironically?) making this predatorial looking shark’s-tooth-inlay-sporting beast of a six-string their main instrument.

There are no rules in 2022. But the reality is that if you walk onstage with this new Jackson Soloist, most guitar fans are going to expect to hear high-adventure, high-adrenaline (or at least high-volume) riffage erupting volcanically from your fingers.

And while I’m fascinated with the idea that this distinctive shred weapon could become more accepted in jam band, jazz fusion, pop, and other genres, I must admit that, like a teenager hopping on a WaveRunner for the first time, the second I first plugged this guitar in I immediately “opened the throttle wide.”

I instantly got in touch with my inner shredder and cranked that bridge Duncan for hours – days, really – reveling in how fun scale patterns, tapped licks, hammers and pulls, and distorted harmonics are to play on the wide-radius, warm-sounding nickel frets.

Hardcore Soloist fans may moan about certain touches they miss from some other iterations, such as the “Made in USA” text of custom Soloists (a phrase that is legally complicated nowadays), steel frets (Jackson swears they would have put them on this guitar if they were the right fit sonically), or neck binding.

But, speaking of the latter, I actually don’t gravitate toward posh guitar touches. Rather, I dig guitars that are broken in way beyond their first scratch, and for that reason I like the subtly rolled, worn-in feel of the SL3 neck’s unbound edges.

In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing this guitar get the full Mad Max treatment – its black paint thrashed down to the primer in places, like an old Camaro. The Jackson American Series Soloist SL3 is not a cheap shred machine – few top-spec American built guitars these days are – but it’s bad-ass.

Rev up this race car of a guitar for a few minutes and you’re not going to want to give up the driver’s seat any time soon.

Specifications:

• NUT: Floyd Rose locking, 1.6875” (42.86mm) width
• NECK: Three-piece graphite-reinforced “soft D-shaped” maple through-body
• FRETBOARD: Ebony, 25.5” scale, 12”–16” compound radius
• FRETS: 24 Jim Dunlop 6100 jumbo nickel
• TUNERS: Gotoh MG-T locking
• BODY: Alder, available in polyester-coated Gloss Black or Riviera Blue, urethane-coated Platinum Pearl, or polyester-coated matte Slime Green
• BRIDGE: Floyd Rose 1500 locking with push-in vibrato arm
• PICKUPS: Seymour Duncan JB TB-4 humbucker (bridge), Seymour Duncan Custom Flat Strat SSL-6 RWRP single-coil (middle), Seymour Duncan Custom Flat Strat SSL-6 single-soil (neck)
• CONTROLS: Master Volume (500K), Master Tone (250K)
• FACTORY STRINGS: Fender USA nickel-plated steel .009–.042
• EXTRAS: Foam-core case, Jim Dunlop Straplok strap retainers and buttons, Luminlay luminescent side dots, neck-heel-mounted truss rod wheel, headstock-mounted hex wrench holder, matching headstock paint
• WEIGHT: 7.8 lbs
• BUILT: USA

Visit Jackson for more information.

Earlier this week, we reported the release of Jackson’s new American Series Soloist SL3 – the first ever US production version of this famed electric guitar design.

Appearing in a choice of Riviera Blue, Slime Green, Platinum Pearl and Gloss Black, the new alder body American Series Soloist SL3 features a through-body three-piece maple neck (25.5" scale length) with graphite reinforcement and a 12”-16” compound radius rolled ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets, inverse mother of pearl sharkfin inlays and Luminlay side dots.

HSS-configured Seymour Duncan pickups include a JB TB-4 in the bridge position and Custom Flat Strat SSL-6 single coils (RWRP in the middle.)

A broad range of powerful tones can be dialed in, courtesy of a five-way blade pickup switch along with single volume and tone controls.

Hardware comprises a Floyd Rose 1500 Series double-locking tremolo bridge system, Gotoh MG-T locking tuners and Dunlop dual-locking strap buttons.            

Earlier this summer, GP's Los Angeles Editor, Jude Gold, visited Jackson's secret press event in Hollywood, California.

Walking into a completely “Jackson-ified" conference room, he got a chance to witness the new American Series Soloist SL3 range in all four colors (while several EVH 5150 tube amps were on hand to crank up and let rip.)

Jude sat down with Jackson/Charvel's Jon Romanowski to find out more…

Also attending the event was Scott Ian who says he prefers the new American Series Soloist SL3 in the headturning Slime Green finish.

But it's about more than just eyecatching looks, he tells us.

“The satin finish on the neck feels great too,” commented the Anthrax axeman. “It makes a fast neck even faster.”

Harking back to his early days as a budding musician, Scott reveals why discovering the humbucker-equipped superstrat design in the early ‘80s was crucial to his development as a guitarist.

“It was the right tool at the right time,” he recalls.

Later that day, Jude walked across the street to a hip Hollywood bar located behind a used record store.

There, on a small stage, he discovered lead guitar ace Brandon Ellis of the Black Dahlia Murder blazing away on a Jackson American Series Soloist SL3…

Jude also had some fun shredding on the Jackson American Series Soloist SL3, and in this in-depth video demo he gives us the whole nine yards.

From the sustain-enhancing graphite-reinforced three-piece maple neck and HSS Seymour Duncan pickups to the mega stable double-locking Floyd Rose and Gotoh locking tuners, it's clear this “fast as f**k” superstrat was built for ultimate speed, unrivalled stability, and kickass tone.

Visit Jackson for more information.

Veteran pickup builder Seymour Duncan has just launched three vintage-style humbuckers inspired by some of classic rock’s greatest guitar tones.

Hand built in California by the firm’s long-established team of world class specialists, these custom shop-style pickups are now available to order as regular stock items.

Found in the axes of many of today's leading electric guitar players – including Slash, Jennifer Batten, Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, Mark Knopfler and countless others – Seymour Duncan pickups are among the most trusted on the market.

Here’s a quick rundown of each of their three new regular production vintage-style humbuckers…

78 Model

Seymour Duncan had already made a name for himself as the pickup guy by the time pickup modding had become a well-established practice in the late ‘70s.

In 1978, he was famously tasked with rewinding a PAF humbucker in order to enhance its sensitivity and tonal response.

Sporting an Alnico 2 magnet and wound to the same specs as this fabled PAF, the 78 Model is a great choice for those seeking an articulate humbucker capable of handling Eddie Van Halen-style whammy bar wizardry and lightning fast solos.

Green Magic

The Green Magic takes inspiration from the legendary ‘Burst dubbed Greeny – an instrument of lore that has been handed down through generations of guitar players from Peter Green to Gary Moore and now Kirk Hammett.

Peter Green rose to prominence in the late ‘60s as one of the leading figures in the British blues guitar movement. Following a stint in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Green founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 and set the guitar world alight with his unparalleled touch and tone.

The Green Magic bottles some of Greeny's unique out-of-phase mojo, as well as providing classic vintage ‘bucker sounds.

High Voltage

For those about to rock some new pickups, the High Voltage delivers AC/DC-style crunch and clarity.

Chunky enough to kick out tight, powerful riffage and with enough clout to make solos sustain and sing, this Alnico 2 hard rocker is tweaked for just a little more edge.

As per the 78 Model and Green Magic pickups, the High Voltage is available as a dual set and individually in bridge, neck and (hotter) Trembucker formats.

Visit Seymour Duncan for more information.

"I still pinch myself from time to time," Jennifer Batten told Guitar Player back in 1999 when this amazing footage of her performing the track “What Mama Said” with Jeff Beck aired on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Two-handed tapper and former Guitar Player columnist Batten had co-written and recorded the number with Beck for the guitarist’s seventh studio album Who Else!

"He hasn't played with another guitar player since the Yardbirds. It's way beyond my wildest dreams," remarked Batten on her new gig as a member of Beck's band.

Batten, who first met Beck in '92 when she was on Michael Jackson's Dangerous tour, went on to say, “At first, I was intimidated because he's the guy I've been looking up to for the last 25 years.

“Everybody looks up to him – whether it's Steve Morse, Steve Vai, or Eric Johnson – because he has this magic thing that nobody else has.

“Luckily, his personality is down-to-earth and friendly enough that I feel comfortable working with him. Actually, I feel a lot more comfortable when I'm onstage with him, rather than if he was out in the audience watching me."

Of all the gear on Beck's stage, nothing rivaled Batten's gargantuan "rack of doom," which housed two completely different systems for electric guitar and keyboard sounds, including two separate foot controllers, three volume pedals, and a DigiTech Whammy.

During a typical show, she was switching between 60 patches: 30 guitar sounds and 30 keyboard sounds. "It's pretty intense," remarked the guitarist. "Sometimes I have a different sound assigned to every string."

At the time, Batten played Washburn Maverick guitars loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups (two with JB Jrs. in the bridge and Hot Stacks in the neck and middle positions, and two with JB Jrs. in the bridge and Duckbuckers in the neck and middle), Roland GK-2A guitar-synth pickups, and Floyd Rose tremolos.

All guitars were set up with the Buzz Feiten Tuning System and strung with Dean Markley .010-.046 gauge strings for increased tension, as Beck tuned down a half-step. 

Her choice of pick was the Fender Jazz heavy.

Batten's guitar system included a Peavey 5150 head and two Peavey 5150 4x12 cabinets. She ran through a DigiTech GSP2101 for clean sounds, and a Boss Acoustic Simulator to cop acoustic guitar tones.

For synth sounds, she used a Roland GR-10 MIDI converter, Akai samplers, and a Roland JV-1080 sound module – all played through Peavey power amps and keyboard cabinets.

“Jeff is always reinventing himself – he's like the Miles Davis of rock guitar," said Batten, a graduate of Hollywood's G.I.T. 

"You never know what to expect from him and he always sets the pace for others to follow."

Browse the Jeff Beck catalog here.

The Gibson Flying V didn’t get off the ground very easily. Along with the Explorer, the design divebombed following its late ‘50s debut. Less than 100 of these original korina body examples are recorded shipping between ’58 and ’59, making it a very rare (and valuable) axe indeed.

Those old Gibson “modernistic” electric guitars were notoriously ahead of their time. It would be years before the Flying V really began to fly.

In the late ‘60s, Gibson relaunched the model, albeit in a different guise with a mahogany body. Following in the footsteps of Albert King, Hendrix famously played a Flying V and from there the progressive solidbody started to come into its own in the world of hard rock.

Fast forward to the ‘80s heyday of metal and the Flying V is riding high with Gibson launching numerous permutations of the model.

Among the countless metal guitarists synonymous with the Flying V-style design are brothers Rudolf and Michael Schenker of Scorpions, K. K. Downing of Judas Priest, and Dave Mustaine of multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning thrash pioneers Megadeth.

Now a veteran of the metal scene, Mustaine has been honored by Gibson with the release of a brand-new signature model – the Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP.

“I think that the Gibson Flying V is such an icon as far as guitars are concerned,” says original ‘big four’ thrash guitar hero Mustaine.

“If you ask someone to draw a guitar, they’ll draw a Flying V.”

Part of Gibson’s Dave Mustaine Collection, the Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP is available in a choice of two finishes: Antique Natural and Silver Metallic.

Priced $2,799, this signature Flying V boasts a longer 25.5” scale mahogany neck with a swanky 24-fret, compound radius ebony fingerboard uniquely featuring mother-of-pearl “teeth” inlays.

While the mahogany body of the Dave Mustaine Flying V EXP follows the traditional Flying V form, the guitar’s headstock profile deviates from the original arrow-shaped peghead and is borrowed from its sibling solidbody, the Gibson Explorer.

Black chrome hardware includes Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners along with a Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop tailpiece.

Working closely with one of the best pickup builders in the business, this Flying V has been endowed with a dual set of Dave Mustaine Signature Seymour Duncan Thrash Factors. Employing “custom Dave Mustaine wiring” the guitar’s controls comprise a three-way selector switch along with a master tone and independent pickup volume pots topped with retro ‘witch hat’ knobs.  

An accessory kit and custom hardshell case are included.

Visit Gibson for more information.

From Mario Maccaferri’s injection-molded plastic guitars of the 1950s to Dan Armstrong’s late-’60s Lucite guitars and basses, and Gibson’s 1980 Sonex line, the use of alternative materials in cutting-edge luthiery is nothing new.

While none of those adventures stayed the course, however, AVA’s high-end guitars made from advanced carbon fiber aim to turn the page on the industry’s use of endangered materials.

It might be antithetical to say carbon fiber has long been the material of the future, but that seemingly contradictory status abides in the guitar world.

While the stuff has been accepted for use in everything from racing bikes to wind-turbine blades to aerospace applications, it has yet to replace traditional woods in the hearts and minds of guitarists, despite the previous and ongoing efforts of adventurous makers such as McPherson, Kevin Michael, Klos, Rainsong, Gus and a few others.

Founded in 2011 in Porto, Portugal, with the express purpose of building elegant, forward-looking instruments, AVA Guitars determined that carbon-fiber construction was the way to go, and the results indicate they’re onto something.

The two examples of AVA’s One First Edition models featured here come to GP fresh from their appearance on the Boutique Guitar Showcase Tour 2021.

Carrying First Edition plates numbered 21 and 22 of 100, they beautifully exhibit the company’s efforts to render this 21st century material into clean, elegant, subtly eclectic guitars.

How do they do it?

“AVA guitars are the result of more than a decade of research, design, development and testing with engineers and guitar players to achieve and iterate the correct behavior of carbon fiber,” AVA CEO Júlio Martins explains.

“Composite materials have a very close resemblance to wood. Both are composed of fibers – cellulose versus carbon fiber – adequately placed into a matrix, in this case a resin. So a very similar approach regarding the orientations of the fibers may be used to mimic the behavior of wood.

“We don’t have any issues with wood,” he adds. “We just want to show that it can be done differently, with soul and sound. And now we can say that carbon-fiber composite is an adequate alternative, regardless of the good historical use of wood, and a great material for musical instruments.”

Obviously, the build process involves careful calculation to maximize both strength and resonance.

“The optimization comes mainly from the type of fibers and the placement and layering of these fibers around the guitar elements – the body, soundboard, neck and headstock,” Martins says.

“We used computer-aided simulation and measurements to help us and to ensure that the right behavior and frequencies were being reproduced.”

As straightforward as the model appears at first glance – intentionally so, Martins says, to aid familiarity – an in-hand inspection reveals the application of a keen eye for design at every angle and curve.

The basic single-cutaway, dual-humbucker format might imply “Les Paul alternative,” but the details are far more modernist than any strict adherence to that archetype might allow, with something of a Scandinavian-meets-midcentury-modern aesthetic playing out across the form as a whole.

The body is much thinner, for one thing, and sculpted so that the inside of the cutaway, neck heel and sides flow smoothly into a gently radiused back, while the top sports a very slight arch from the sharp edges to the center.

Between the shallow body dimensions and the largely hollow-bodied carbon-fiber shell, both guitars come in very light, too, at just a tick over six pounds, and each includes a custom white AVA flight case.

The neck and body are formed as an integral unit to a scale length of 25.4 inches.

The Richlite Black Diamond fingerboard has 22 medium-jumbo Jescar frets with a Tusq nut, beyond which is a tapered, minimalist headstock with a truss-rod access cover and Schaller M6 tuners.

The neck is molded to a medium-C shape that feels nicely rounded in the palm. A width of 1.71 inches at the nut and a flat-leaning 16-inch fingerboard radius yield lots of playing room across the board (which, arguably, might feel a little broad to smaller hands), and the neck is smooth, fast and easy.

The cosmetic details also deliver more than might appear at first glance.

The humbucker-equipped example’s nearly black top is the result of AVA’s intention to leave the fibers visible. This reveals the unidirectional carbon fiber, in which the fibers are placed in a single direction, rather than the more common woven pattern seen in the control cavity cover.

It all contrasts dramatically with the bright white of the back and neck.

The salmon-pink guitar, which is the same color front and back (with a narrow black binding to separate the two) presents a nicely textured feel from its matte-acrylic finish, with a smoother neck back for easy playing.

Both guitars carry Schaller hardware throughout, including Tune-o-matic-inspired roller-saddle bridges and stop-bar tailpieces – black hardware on the salmon-pink guitar, and an elegant bronzed plating on the black-and-white.

The latter carries a pair of Seymour Duncan Seth Lover humbuckers installed open-coil, with thin filets of carbon fiber atop the coils.

The salmon-pink example has humbucker-sized Lollar Charlie Christian blade pickups.

Both sets do their thing through a custom circuit board beneath the arty control plates, with three-way toggle selector and master volume and tone controls.

One could argue that these AVAs might benefit from more modernist component selection, and there’s a great variety of stylish and creative parts out there even off the shelf. On the other hand, the traditional bridge, tailpiece, tuner and pickup designs might also help these otherwise overtly alternative guitars cross over to more conservative players.

Played unplugged, both guitars exhibit good acoustic volume and impressive sustain.

Their sonic foundation is upper-midrange forward, with a little more “snap” than you might expect to hear from a traditional set-neck solid or semi-solid electric.

But different types of guitars can sound so extremely different when played un-amped as it is, and we wouldn’t venture to say these sound dramatically different from anything else because of their alternative materials.

Plugged into a Friedman Small Box head with a 2x12 cab and a Carr Super Bee 1x10 combo amplifier, the full character of these instruments roars.

The overall tone of each is more balanced, clear, dynamic and expressive than overtly “modern,” especially when you close your eyes and simply play them.

Many players’ preconceptions of electric guitars made from alternative modern materials is that they’ll sound cold, sterile and clinical, yet both AVA examples are anything but.

There’s a subtly gutteral richness at the heart of the tone that seems to be a combination of the instruments’ lively acoustic resonance and the pickups doing their thing. This lends a little grind even to cleaner settings when you dig in, but it also cleans up remarkably well through a winding-down of the volume control via the custom electronics.

In this way and others, the humbuckerloaded, black-and-white AVA is somewhat aligned with a good semi-acoustic ES-335 and the like, with that ever-so-slightly raspy vibrational edge leading the fuller body and richness that underpins its sonic personality.

As such, there’s plenty of bite and sting without ever being harsh or strident. And while there’s decent thickness to the overall voice, too, it’s perhaps more in the SG camp (or again, the ES) than the Les Paul camp.

The salmon AVA is a little more individualistic, its Lollar blade pickups giving it a trenchant, slightly raw voice that one might call part P-90, part gold-foil, and one that’s very inspiring at that.

It’s great for anything from dirty country blues to rootsy snarl to heavier indie and garage-rock styles, and it proved extremely appealing into a variety of amp settings and pedals.

All in all, the AVA One First Edition is a great option for guitarists looking to break the bounds of conventional construction and find creatively expressive new voices in the process, without tipping over into instruments that look or sound overtly experimental or otherworldly.

The Portuguese maker clearly has something going here, and we’re excited to see where they take it next.

For more information visit AVA Guitars or South Shore Guitar Boutique.

Back in 2015, Sean Lennon’s band the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger was the opening act on a tour co-headlined by Primus and Dinosaur Jr. Which is how Lennon ended up in an impromptu jam session with Primus bassist and lead vocalist Les Claypool one night before a show.

“We were playing on acoustics in the back of Les’s tour bus, 10 or 15 minutes before one of us was supposed to go onstage,” Lennon recalls. “And we came up with a bunch of things really fast. I remember Les being like, ‘Yeah, I noticed that you were kind of writing a song as we jammed, as opposed to just noodling.’ I think he liked that.”

“He was playing things that I wasn’t expecting, and that always intrigues me when I play with someone,” Claypool adds. “So I could tell right away that we had an interesting dynamic together. And I also liked the fact that Sean sometimes has odd approaches to what he does.” He laughs. “Because as you may know from my work, I’m a little off-center, too.”

“Off-center,” of course, doesn’t even begin to describe the supreme oddness of Claypool and Lennon’s individual artistic output. As the frontman and main songwriter for Primus, the former has spent the past three decades or so crafting some of the knottiest, most dizzyingly complex and bizarre bass lines heard in modern music, and then grafting them to similarly wacko punk-funk-prog-rock creations with titles like “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” and “Shake Hands With Beef.”

As for Lennon, he’s a multi-instrumentalist with a ridiculously long résumé. In addition to his solo and band pursuits, he’s collaborated with artists in pop, rock, metal, avant-garde, hip-hop, psychedelia, folk and other genres – and that’s in addition to his work scoring films, producing records, acting and more. (He is also, of course, the offspring of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.) Put these two off-center individuals together in a room – or the back of a tour bus, as it were – and the result is, as Lennon says, “definite creative chemistry.”

The outcome of that chemistry is the Claypool Lennon Delirium, a project that serves as a conduit for the two artists to explore the outermost reaches of their shared musical sensibilities. The duo issued their debut album, Monolith of Phobos, in 2016, and followed it up in 2017 with the EP Lime and Limpid Green, which featured covers of songs from Syd Barrett–era Pink Floyd, King Crimson, the Who and the late-’60s Japanese rock group Flower Travellin’ Band.

Their latest album, 2019’s South of Reality (ATO Records), finds Claypool and Lennon indulging their shared love of ‘60s and ’70s prog, psych and garage rock and melding it to jam-band-esque instrumental excursions, sweet-and-sour vocal harmonies and a lyric approach that is one part dark ruminations on the human condition and one part word-salad whimsy. All of which is to say South of Reality is, in one sense, exactly what we might expect from a meeting of these two oddball minds. At the same time, it sounds quite unlike anything else in popular music at this time.

Around the time of the album’s release, Claypool and Lennon sat down with Guitar Player to discuss their unique artistic bond, their unusual recording arrangement (which includes, on Lennon’s part at least, the use of a hefty number of sound-warping pedals) and what it is they like about working with one another. Central to this last point, Lennon says, is the fact that “we have an easy flow together.”

Which is, Claypool adds, an important, if not essential, aspect of the Delirium. “It has to be easy,” he says. “Because I don’t like pushing things. If things aren’t coming easy then I’ll go do something else – like catch a fish or something.”

The two of you pull from a lot of different sounds and styles in the Claypool Lennon Delirium. But what’s most pronounced in it are elements of late ’60s and early ’70s prog. What do you love about that music?

Sean Lennon: I think we love prog because it’s open-ended, and you can kind of do anything with it. It’s expansive. So it suits us, because it doesn’t seem strange to write a song in three sections about a rocket scientist [the South of Reality track “Blood and Rockets,” about American rocket engineer Jack Parsons]. It’s the theatrical version of rock and roll. [laughs] In prog, you’re allowed to write about “By-Tor and the Snow Dog,” or whatever. So it does kind of suit the Delirium in that way.

Les Claypool: I like it because it’s a rock that I haven’t really turned over on my own yet. And I tend to turn over a lot of rocks. I think Primus has always been pretty progressive, but in a different way. Primus is a heavier band. This to me is more reminiscent of Syd-era Floyd stuff and things that were going on around that time. And we come at it from different angles.

As a kid, I was a big fan of Rush and Yes and Utopia and Jethro Tull, whereas I think Sean was coming from a more psychedelic side of things. I remember, we were in his car one time going from his place in upstate New York back to Manhattan, and he was driving and I thought he was going to kill us because he was playing disc jockey the whole time, trying to get me to listen to all this psychedelic shit. So we like turning each other on to different things.

What was the collaborative process like for South of Reality? Were you guys coming up with ideas independent of one another, or were you working on everything together?

Lennon: Both. Les has a really good work ethic in a lot of ways. For example, he has this policy that everyone shows up for rehearsal the first day knowing, basically, everything. [laughs] Like, they should know all the songs for a tour. Every part! As far as I know, a lot of people, and me especially, don’t mind rehearsing at rehearsal.

But he wants you to do your homework. It’s kind of like that for him when making a record, too. He does his homework before he gets there, and he shows up with a lot of ideas. But then there are other things that we came up with just by jamming together in the studio. Les is a really fast songwriter. Sometimes we would write a song a day for several days in a row. We’d just be cranking them out.

Sean, as a guitarist, is Les an intimidating guy to play with?

Lennon: He’s not intimidating in terms of his personality, but I’m definitely years behind him in terms of technical prowess and accomplishment on my instrument. The idea of holding my own in that way was a little bit daunting for me. But it pushed me to practice a little bit for… well, for pretty much the first time in my life. [laughs] Because I never really had a goal of becoming a guitar player specifically. I always considered the guitar to be a vehicle for me to write songs. So I wound up doing a little bit of practicing at first, and I still do. Whenever I’m going to go play with him, I practice some scales and exercises that I’ve found on YouTube or that different people have taught me. Because I don’t want to get tired out with Les, especially onstage. Sometimes the solos go on for quite some time.

Claypool: [laughs] Sean’s a pretty humble guy. He always worries about whether he’s up to snuff when we get ready to do some shows, and he wants to rehearse probably more than I would normally rehearse. But he’s a great guitarist. And a very intuitive player.

In addition to your musical connection, there seems to be a shared sensibility as far as the lyrics and artwork go. You guys both have a knack for conjuring dark but whimsical imagery.

Lennon: I think that’s one of the fun things about the character of the band. Because of Les’s personality, which is so strong and unique, there’s always a bit of humor mixed in as one of the ingredients. That definitely opens doors. It kind of gives you an excuse to take certain risks that you might not otherwise take. And that’s nice for me, because it makes me feel like I can write songs about imaginary things and surrealist things and funny stories and bizarre histories. Whereas sometimes, if I’m writing for myself, like under the title of Sean Ono Lennon or something, I wind up writing about things I feel or think. But in the Delirium I can write about sci-fi and children’s books and horror and comedy. The door is open to come up with fantastical story lines.

Claypool: I tend to bring this sort of twisted Americana element to everything I do, which is just me reflecting my background. But the great thing about Sean is, he’s like a scientist. He’s constantly delving into realms of science and lore and whatnot that most people just don’t delve into as deeply as he does. And, of course, when you have conversations with Sean and you talk about your childhood — or, I should say, my childhood — it’s quite a bit different than what his childhood was like. So you get two different perspectives and experiences of being on the planet.

What gear are you guys using on South of Reality?

Claypool: I’m using one of my Pachyderm basses, which I make with a buddy of mine that I went to high school with named Dan Maloney. For pedals I have a Line 6 [DL4] Delay and a Line 6 [DM4] Distortion, and I have a Boomerang [Phrase Sampler] and a [Fractal] AX8 [Amp Modeler and Multi-Effects Processor]. And I don’t use an amp: I have two API 7600 channel strips, and then I go into the console and into Pro Tools.

Sean, what were your main electric guitars on the record?

Lennon: My Delirium guitars are kind of flashy, in a funny way. I have two custom Bilt Zaftig guitars that are my main axes. One has a kind of greenish-teal glitter finish, and the other is all silver, with a mirror pickguard. I play them onstage and also in the studio, because Les and I tend to use the same gear for both. I have my same pedalboard setup in the studio, too. For my amp, I mostly used this little old Mesa/Boogie of Les’s. We put the Mesa/Boogie in this closet-shower contraption in the corner of the studio.

Claypool: You have to imagine, my whole house [Rancho Relaxo, in northern California, where Claypool records] is like a time capsule from the ’70s. It was built in 1978, so it’s very Boogie Nights. The bathroom in the studio is all brown – even the toilet. So the amp is shoved into this little brown shower, and we mic it up, throw some pads around it, shut the door and away we go.

Lennon: Once we get the amp sounding really nice, we don’t really think about it again. From there, any changes in the guitar sound come mostly from my pedalboard. We also don’t have any assistant engineer or anything. It’s just Les running Pro Tools and the API board.

So it’s just the two of you in the studio?

Lennon: Yeah. It’s literally only the two of us.

Who’s playing drums on the record?

Lennon: I am. Though we also had Paulo Baldi, who has played with Cake, come in and play on three songs.

Sean, you use effects pretty extensively in this band. Can you talk about what you had on your pedalboard in the studio?

Lennon: My pedalboard is kind of ridiculous. I start with a simple [Seymour Duncan] 805 Overdrive, the turquoise one. Then I have another overdrive pedal, this thing called a Crazy Tube Circuits Starlight, which Nels Cline gave me, and then I have a Pro Co RAT. After my overdrives and distortion is an Electro-Harmonix Mellotron pedal [the MEL9]. That goes into an Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar pedal. That’s a very hard pedal to control, but I like to use it for the drone-y, sympathetic-string sound. And then I have my wah, which is actually the [Dunlop] Zakk Wylde Cry Baby. I tend to use that one because it has a wider frequency sweep.

From there I go into a DigiTech HardWire [SP-7] phaser, an Electro-Harmonix Nano Small Stone and an Electro-Harmonix POG. After that I have a tremolo pedal, and after that comes my first delay pedal, which is just a standard Electro-Harmonix Memory Man. I’ve also been using the Catalinbread Belle Epoch tape echo pedal and this weird Death by Audio reverb [the Reverberation Machine] that’s kind of trashy and vintage sounding. It’s very hard to use, and you have to set it really carefully, but it has a very beautiful and moody ambience. And after that reverb I have an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail, which is my favorite reverb ever. That’s my basic setup live, and it’s what I have in the studio, too.

When it comes to recording your guitar tracks, are you manipulating the pedals in real time?

Lennon: Yes. I do that a lot. I try to be very close to the pedals so I can mess with them as we’re recording.

Les, what do you think of the way Sean uses his pedals?

Claypool: Sean’s very good with his pedals and knows his way around them. There’s a little bit of pasta-throwing at the wall [laughs], but he tends to know what he wants. For the most part he’ll hear something in his head and he’ll grab what he thinks will work. And nine times out of 10, it is what works.

Sean, you also get ample space to play some lead guitar throughout the record. How did you approach your solos?

Lennon: Well, again, Les really has his own philosophy about soloing. And that’s been helpful, because he has a sense of when he feels a solo is going somewhere and when it’s not.

Claypool: I like getting a whole performance, because to me it just flows better. You get that emotion – you get that dynamic and continuity. I just like capturing the moment. I’m not one for comping together a solo. So in the studio I would push Sean. But I kind of push everybody.

Lennon: As far as how I approach my solos? I try to think of them melodically and as having a narrative that has a structure to it. I try not to start at 11. [laughs] But mostly I just try to think of a melody, because I’m not the most technical player. I’m not going to rely on some sort of athleticism, so I have to think of something that will sound musical in order to get me through to the other side.

You guys have now made two albums and an EP together. What is it about your dynamic together that works so well for the two of you?

Claypool: There’s a few things, but the best thing is the hang. Sean and I have a great relationship just as a couple of humans on the planet, you know? That’s where it really starts. Beyond that, we tend to make each other laugh and we tend to stimulate each other intellectually and musically. And we challenge each other. It’s also great to be in the studio with someone that has equally as much to offer lyrically and composition-wise. This is definitely the strongest collaboration I’ve ever had with another songwriter.

How about you, Sean?

Lennon: Honestly, the best thing about working with Les is being able to sit around and hang out with him. He’s such a funny guy. And he takes me fishing. We went… what is it, crabbing? We went crabbing and got some king crab.

Claypool: We almost sunk!

Lennon: And the other thing I like is the shows. Playing with Les and this band is so different than any other band I’ve played with. It’s a different experience because I’m given different responsibilities that I’ve never really had before, especially in terms of playing so much lead guitar. Because in my own music there are never these long periods of improvisation. But sometimes Les will just point at me onstage and say, “All right, go for it!” Or sometimes he’ll just walk offstage. He’ll look at me and be like, I’m going to get some water, or something like that. And then I’ll be alone up there and have to improvise and come up with something cool to entertain people.

Les, you’ll really just walk off the stage and leave Sean there alone?

Claypool: Yes.

Why?

Claypool: Well, with Primus we have a lot of material; with Delirium, not so much. So there are a couple of songs where Sean starts with the little strummy-strum-strum thing, and I’ll just leave the stage and let him run with the ball for a little bit. Because he’s a very inventive guy. So he’ll come up with some cool shit.

Sean, how do you feel about that?

Lennon: At first it was really scary. But now it’s just exciting.

Browse The Claypool Lennon Delirium music here.

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.

Having been in the business since 1976, Seymour Duncan are perhaps better known as one of the world’s foremost pickup builders. However, for many years now the California firm has also been designing and making high-quality guitar effects pedals, pushing the envelope in recent years with more advanced designs such as the Dark Sun Digital Delay + Reverb pedal. 

Released back in 2014, the Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail analog delay pedal is a classic vintage-style BBD/bucket brigade device with standard controls – including Mix (wet/dry signal), Repeats (feedback) and Delay (time) – pimped up with a generous handful of extra features such as Rate and Depth modulation controls and enhanced wet signal options. It is a powerful unit in itself. But its successor – the Vapor Trail Deluxe – takes the world of analog delay to a whole new level.

Seymour Duncan engineer Wayne Rothermich’s painstaking research and development involved tweaking the advanced design to perfection over the course of an entire year (including three major redesigns and 23 revisions), resulting in a pedal that is capable of doing far more than your average analog delay, thanks to its unique analog/digital hybrid design. (Wayne also happens to design actual space exploration equipment on the side, so he’s right at home building spacey-sounding pedals like the Vapor Trail Deluxe!)

Whereas the original Vapor Trail boasts a very respectable 600 milliseconds of maximum delay time the Vapor Trail Deluxe manages to double that to a whopping 1.2 seconds. By comparison, the original Boss DM-2 features 300 milliseconds maximum.

Offering extended digital control, this analog pedal has also been fitted with a tap tempo function for immediate delay time control (augmented by 1/4 note, dotted 1/8 note, 1/8 note, and 1/8 note triplet subdivision settings), along with four distinct modes (Micro Delay; Pitch Sequence; Pitch Bender; and Runaway), and three preset locations to recall your favorite settings.

While retaining the Wet Insert function of its predecessor this bells and whistles analog delay also features expression pedal control, a dynamic modulation that ranges from subtle undercurrents of movement to stronger, Leslie-style sounds, and the ability to turn delay tails on and off.

Buy the Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail Deluxe Analog Delay

Seymour Duncan has teamed up with Joe Bonamassa to create the new "Bonnie" pickup set and loaded pickguard.

The A-list blues guitarist's fourth collaboration with the pickup giants, the "Bonnie" pickup set is based on the pickups found on Bonamassa's '55 hardtail Strat of the same name. They feature era-accurate cloth, pushback lead wires, black Forbon flatwork, Alnico IV rod magnets, and a uniform 5.96K rating.

Even the plastic covers are aged to perfectly replicate the originals found on the '55 Strat.

The Loaded Pickguard, meanwhile, features a 5-way selector switch, modern switch tip, mini skirt control knobs, a custom-made “Phone Book,” .1uF/150V capacitor, and three 250K high-quality CTS potentiometers.

Seymour Duncan's Joe Bonamassa Signature "Bonnie" pickups will be available in a limited run of only 550 sets, while the Loaded Pickguards will be available in a run of 100. Prices for the products have yet to be announced.

For more information on the pickups, stop by seymourduncan.com.

Seymour Duncan has teamed up with Brad Paisley to create the new Custom Shop “Secret Agent” Esquire neck pickup.

The Secret Agent is a "stealthy" pickup that's recessed and designed to be hidden under the pickguard of a Fender Esquire to provide the tonal options of a traditional Tele.

Because it's recessed though, it gives less magnetic pull to the guitar’s strings, thereby maintaining both the Esquire's trademark bridge pickup sustain and classic looks.

According to Seymour Duncan, the end result is a pickup that offers a “full, warm, almost jazzy neck-pickup tone, complementing the Esquire bridge pickup’s bark and snarl.”

The Seymour Duncan Brad Paisley Signature “Secret Agent” Esquire neck pickup features a medium-output ceramic bar magnet, and is handmade in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop. It's available now for $130.

For more info on the pickup, stop on by seymourduncan.com.