The Adam Black Orion review Can you really make a guitar for this sort of money that’s worth making a song and dance about? It seems that Adam Black Orion may have found a way. Marcus Leadley investigates Blimey, it’s a bit chunky – that’s the first impression when you heft the Orion onto you […]
Vintage Guitars
Adam Black Libra Extreme
The Adam Black Libra Extreme review Can you really make a guitar for this sort of money that’s worth making a song and dance about? It seems that Adam Black Libra Extreme may have found a way. Marcus Leadley investigates. With a push-pull phase switch on the volume knob and a mini coil-tap toggle, the […]
Ibanez Prestige Series RG3620Z electric guitar review
The Presitge Series RG3620Z by Ibanez Even if you’re only into vintage-style guitars, I’d defy anybody who truly loves the instrument to pick up one of these Ibanez Prestige Series RG3620Z without being impressed. It’s a great deal more sophisticated and accomplished than just a pointy metal machine – and it owes little or nothing […]
Fender 60’s Strat electric guitar review
Fender 60’s Strat review With an appearance that looks like the negative image of the ’50s Strat, this beauty Fender 60’s Strat features an olympic white finish paired with a rosewood fingerboard, which in this reviewer’s eyes is one of the sexiest combos on any guitar. It also sports probably the most realistic overall relicing […]
Fender 50’s Telecaster electric guitar review
Fender 50’s Telecaster review No doubt plenty of these will be sold on their looks alone, but a guitar is only as good as the sound it makes. So it will come as a relief to many prospective buyers that the Road Worn series are no furniture instruments – they’re players. Fender 50’s Telecaster has […]
Fenders Jim Adkins Telecaster electric guitar review
Review Now everybody knows that the rawest, rockingest six-string machines ever devised are the Fenders Jim Adkins and the Gibson Les Paul Junior. So the idea of a ‘combination’ model – a Tele with a set neck and a pair of P90s – is pretty appealing, and when you factor in a Thinline Tele-style semi-solid […]
Ritchie Blackmoore Fender Signature Stratocaster
Blackmoore Fender Want to get closer to rock god tone? With a custom pickup layout and, crucially, a scalloped fingerboard, this Blackmoore Fender model is like no other Stratocaster. From a distance, there’s not much to tell this guitar apart from any other original or 70s reissue arctic white Strat with a rosewood board: no […]
Gibson Les Paul Standard 2008
Review The Standard isn’t standard any more. It’s lighter, has an all-new neck shape, and subtle additions that make it world-tour practical right out of the box. Gibson Les Paul Standard 2008Odd, isn’t it, that the Standard – not the Custom, or Deluxe, or any of the other attractively-named variants – has become the holy […]
Lines Londoner Guitar Review
Lines Londoner Review D’Aquisto had the New Yorker, Guild had the Manhattan, and now British luthier Andrew Lines has the three-pickup Londoner archtop. Rick Batey decides it’s a capital idea. It’s a rare guitar maker who has not dreamed of specialising in archtops, the cream of the luthier’s art, and reaching the heady heights of […]
Michael Kelly Valor X
Making a bid for mid-priced success is a new range which includes this high-powered all-rounder and a full-on rocker with EMGs and a Floyd Rose. Review by Marcus Leadley. This maker’s name will be best known to those of you with an interest in either mandolins or acoustic basses, for this is where the Michael […]