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The Latest Breaking News from Guitar World

“There is a lot of fun to be had by putting random alternative bass notes under a chord”: Pete Townshend, RayDavies and David Bowie all used thirdinversionchords – here’s why (and how) you should, too

If the idea of third inversions seems all upside down, fear not: these five examples show how easy they are to put together – and how musical they are when you apply them in a song

Guitar World

“One of the most significant artefacts in rock music history”: Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E – the world’s most expensive guitar – has been donated to the Royal College of Music London

Plans are being made for the guitar to embark on a 2026 tour

Guitar World

“It’s clear to see that modelers have won the battle”: Modelers outsold traditional amps and combos in 2025 – but the war between the two might not be over just yet

Reverb's end-of-year sales stats make for interesting reading with regard to the current state of the amp modeler vs. tube amp debate

Guitar World

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“We are big fans of tube amplifiers. There’s no substitute for playing an amp in a room”: From amps to plugins, Tosin Abasi teases the next evolution of Abasi Concepts

Abasi also addresses the ubiquitous amp modeler versus amplifier debate – and why “nothing defeats the experience of plugging into an amp”

Guitar World

“It was the worst guitar I’d ever played. I’d spent all my money making it. I was stuck with it. So I started writing songs”: Arm the Homeless was a disaster, then it changed rock history. Tom Morello reveals how Fender replicated its misfit charms

Arm the Homeless is synonymous with the Rage Against the Machine firebrand and one of the most iconic electric guitars of all time. Morello explains why, after 30 years, he’s finally getting sentimental about his “artistic co-worker” – and the one thing that separates the Fender replica from the original

Guitar World

“It was the guitarhe played on the band’s earliest demos and at their early club gigs”: The Harmony Stratotone that Brian Jones used to teach Keith Richards and played on the Rolling Stones debut single fetches $150,000 at auction

It is a lot of dough for an entry-level instrument – but given the Stratotone's provenance, the auctioneers were estimating it would go for more than twice that

Guitar World

“Do you see Taylor Swift shredding scales? I don’t think so”: Wolfgang Van Halen on how fans unfairly critique his guitar playing because of his father – and why shredding like Eddie isn’t important

The Mammoth multi-instrumentalist has pursued his own musical path – though some commenters can’t help but constantly compare him to Eddie Van Halen

Guitar World

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“One of the best-sounding headphone amps for guitar I’ve had my hands on”: Blackstar Beam Solo review

Blackstar enters a very busy market with their take on the ubiquitous headphone amp for guitar

Guitar World

“When people throw around the Lennon/McCartney comparison to Bob Mould and Grant Hart, I think that’s fair”: Greg Norton believes Hüsker Dü were always going to break up, but it happened too soon

The current Ultrabomb bassist discusses the instruments that led to his custom Reverend, how a 1985 concert video got lost, and how easy it was to learn from bandmate Mould

Guitar World

“Being in the same band with Joe felt like watching a childhood fantasy step out of my teenage brain”: Steve Vai and Joe Satriani announce the return of the SatchVai Band with their debut U.S. tour – and tease an upcoming album

After embarking on a European tour earlier this year, the two are back with their first-ever collaborative U.S. dates and plenty more music

Guitar World

“The guitar I learned to play on isn’t worth much, but I’ve played it at thousands of concerts and hundreds of recording sessions”: He’s performed on over 500 albums. Now Marcus Deml is making breathtaking guitar instrumentals under his own name

He spent 12-hour days learning at GIT in the shred era. But for his Strat-led solo showcase, Deml relied mainly on his ears and a religious approach to tone

Guitar World

"If you banish the desire for any real bass thump, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in the sounds you can coax out of this thing": Yamaha JR1 acoustic guitar review

Is this pint-sized dread Yamaha's ultimate beginner acoustic? Let's find out

Guitar World

“On the real Arm the Homeless guitar, a dog chewed the headstock. Other than that, they’re absolutely identical”: Tom Morello has been playing a Fender Arm the Homeless replica live and none of us noticed – now it’s available to buy

Five years in the making, the Rage Against the Machine guitar anti-hero’s most iconic instrument has been replicated by Fender – and even Morello admits he can’t tell the difference

Guitar World

“The guy met me in a Tower Records parking lot and gave me that bass... I’ve recorded every record on it since I got it”: How Flea landed his cherished 1961 Fender Jazz Bass after finding a seller during the early days of Twitter

During the early days of his career, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist was far from a gearhead – but an old Fender changed his tune

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“This isn’t a remake. It's an evolution”: The DigiTech Bad Monkey broke the internet with its Klon-aping antics – now it’s back and badder than ever before

The unassuming budget overdrive sent the gear world into a frenzy when JHS Pedals' Josh Scott pitted it against a Klon Centaur – and the differences were borderline indistinguishable

Guitar World

“It was a little hard bouncing between classes and playing gigs like Coachella. Now I’m out of school, I can devote all my time to being a musician”: Is Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer guitar’s next superstar?

At 22 years old, he’s already a star of stage and screen. Taz seems like such a nice kid, but don’t be fooled – he plays like a demon

Guitar World

“Tuning it was really hard… especially because I was stoned a lot of the time”: Joe Walsh walks you through the guitars he’s selling at auction – including one with a Morse code fretboard

All proceeds will go to his charity, Vets Aid

Guitar World

Tetsu Yamauchi, former bassist of Free and the Faces, has died at 79

The bassist, who kickstarted his professional career with Japanese prog rockers Micky Curtis & The Samurais, went on to record on Free's final studio album and joined the Faces until the band's disbandment

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Guitar World

“We are building a system to stimulate and retrieve energy to Earth”: Electro-Harmonix wants to harness the magnetosphere’s energy to solve the AI power crisis

Brand founder Mike Matthews has teamed up with a former Bell Labs scientist to shape his plans

Guitar World

“It’s like getting a pre-washed pair of jeans: they’re broken in so they’re comfortable right out of the store”: The making of the American Professional Classic series – the brand-new “lived-in” (but not relic’d) US Fender line

More aged nitro finishes and a new US-made line-up that pares back the modernisms. Are our tastes changing? Max Gutnik, chief product officer at FMIC, tells all

Guitar World

“I discovered African blackwood probably around 20 years ago. The first guitar was paired with a cedar top and the volume blew me away”: How a $10K acoustic build put the loud into Lowden – with exotic tonewoods and faultless construction

Meet the high-end cutaway acoustic of your dreams that looks a million dollars and costs more than $10,000 – another occasion when Irish luthier George Lowden has raised the bar

Guitar World

“Moments like this don’t happen in real life”: Jared James Nichols spotted a pedal builder in the audience at one of his gigs – then handed him his guitar mid-solo

The impromptu guest spot was full of high notes

Guitar World

“There is no greater story of triumph than that of B.B. King. I’m humbled to help bring it to life”: A B.B. King biopic is on the way – and it will chronicle the blues legend’s life, legacy and Lucille

The film will chart B.B. King’s rise from extreme poverty to global stardom – and his life-long partnership with his iconic ES-355 will be at the heart of it all

Guitar World

“I step back and I’m like, ‘Don’t think about it. Maybe you nailed it, maybe you didn’t’”: John Mayer names his favorite solo with Dead & Company – and plays it live on air

Mayer was asked the question during his Life with John Mayer SiriusXM show, and he just so happened to have a Silver Sky in hand to answer it

Guitar World

“He broke my heart, but at the same time, I was like, ‘Okay, well, I would love to have a Fender Jazz Bass’”: Bootsy Collins' first Fender Jazz Bass has just been sold at auction – and shot past its estimate

James Brown bought the bass sometime in 1970 for his young protégé, William Earl Collins, better known as Bootsy Collins, and it would go on to be played by another one of his bassists, Fred Thomas

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