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REVEALED: 9 | Vintage Vibes

“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

Guitar World

“Rickenbacker had a doubleneck guitar and bass, so I bought one. Then Fender came to me and said, ‘Why are you playing that?’” How Moody Blues bassist John Lodge found another gear with a Fender double-neck that was half P-Bass/half Telecaster

Having anchored the Moody Blues since the ’60s, the late John Lodge had a VIP seat for the Austin Powers-like era that made London the capital of cool

Guitar World

“A warning shot to the competition and a reminder that Fender is still very much a force in the amp modeler market”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including a new digital era for EVH

A landmark update for the Tone Master Pro, a new digital 5150III combo, and a signature capsule for Iron Maiden all landed this week

Guitar World

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“You can get some very mournful sounds out of it as well as in‑your-face. It’s a real old battle-axe”: Gary Moore’s 1963 Telecaster is modded and thrashed to death – and it’s got a tone pot that behaves like a wah

Before it was auctioned for just under $69,000, we take a closer look at one of the lesser-spotted electrics in Moore’s collection, with Bonham’s Steve Clarke sharing its story

Guitar World

Fender keeps up with Neural DSP in the amp modeler race by giving the Tone Master Pro its first polyphonic synths – included in major free firmware update

New amps, cabs, a raft of effects, and some big quality of life updates keep the modeler’s talons sharp

Guitar World

“It was pretty much written in a day. I knew I had something quite special. Then the next day we played it with the band and it sounded like a bag of…”: How Neil Finn created the beautiful ballad that gave Crowded House a global smash hit

"Hey now, hey now..."

MusicRadar

“Virtually indistinguishable from the all-tube original”: EVH signals the start of a brave new era with its first digital combo – which promises authentic Eddie Van Halen tube amp tones

The three channel amp is a lightweight reinvention of Eddie Van Halen's iconic 5150III in a digital combo form

Guitar World

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EVH Gear turns its “holy grail” Eddie Van Halen amp Hypersonic with an all-digital 5150III 6L6 modelling combo that weighs a whopping 16kg less than its tube-driven equivalent

The three-channel 50W monster is a super lightweight combo that is easy on your back while showing no quarter with its high-gain tone, and EVH Gear says its faithful to the original tube amp

MusicRadar

“People don't know this. He loved it”: Jeff Beck secretly played a PRS at home – and the company is trying to get it back

Beck played Fenders, Gibsons, even Jacksons onstage – but he reportedly kept a PRS handy at home for recording

Guitar World

“When we were finished gouging it with screwdrivers, spraying blops of paint on it, dragging it around the yard, and banging it on the driveway, we hung it up in a tree”: Adrian Belew on how he and Seymour Duncan made one of the first relic’d guitars

The prog guitar icon has posted new pics taken by Seymour Duncan that show off their handiwork as they turned Belew's new Strat into a relic and started guitar's most controversial trend

MusicRadar

“He proved to me long ago that Fender belongs in the world of heavy metal”: Fender honors Iron Maiden’s 50th Anniversary with a stable of limited signatures for Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and Steve Harris

The UK metal titans’ triple guitar team and bassist have all been honored with a range of specially tailored signatures

Guitar World

Fender and Jackson celebrate 50 years of Iron Maiden with limited run signature models – including a Masterbuilt Dave Murray Strat that’ll leave you losfer words

Choose your fighter, Maiden fans, with four variations on the archetypical Superstrat including a Custom Shop doozy... And it is foot on the monitor time with that Harris P-Bass

MusicRadar

“Bob Dylan wrote some notes on a napkin and said, ‘Give this to McGuinn. He’ll know what to do withit.’ It was like the Holy Grail”: Roger McGuinn on the making of The Byrds’ countercultural classic

Roger McGuinn explains how Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan and CBS-era Fender amps all factored into the making of The Byrds’ 1969 classic, Ballad of Easy Rider

Guitar World

“It’s the biggest song in the set and it wasn’t a single. It wasn’t anywhere close to being a single”: The classic track that defines John Mayer as a guitarist and a songwriter

“Without Pearl Jam there is no Slow Dancing In A Burning Room,” he said

MusicRadar

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Guitar World

“Gives you the keys to a studio full of classic tube amps, speaker cabs, stompboxes, and effects”: Universal Audio’s amp-emulating pedals have been a huge success – now they’ve arrived in plugin form via the all-inclusive Paradise Guitar Studio

Offering six amps, cab sims, and studio-quality pre- and post-effects, it aims to be a one-stop shop for vintage tone enthusiasts embracing the modern age

Guitar World

“James Brown told me, ‘Son, you can’t come on my stage with that funny-looking thing!’” When a young Bootsy Collins joined James Brown’s band, the Godfather of Funk bought him a Fender Jazz Bass. Now it’s up for auction

Following Bootsy’s departure from the JBs in 1972, the bass continued its life on stage with Fred Thomas, another of Brown’s longtime bassists

Guitar World

“Time to add a 5th JHS pedal to my rig? With 25% off this just-launched distortion, it’s hard to resist”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including the unmissable Black Friday gear discounts I’m eyeing up

The Kilt celebrates its 10th birthday, Fractal goes up against IK Multimedia and Line 6, and Tom DeLonge reaches for the stars (literally)

Guitar World

“I’d put it right alongside any of the classic Fender amps. I think it’s earned that right”: 30 years of the Blues Junior – the Fender combo that came, saw and conquered the tube amp market

Compact, affordable and full of Fender DNA, the Blues Junior celebrates three decades as one of the company’s most iconic and celebrated tube amp designs. This is its story

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Guitar World

“They each have their own weird little soul”: Tom DeLonge has unveiled 10 new Fender Starcasters – and they’re made with actual meteorites from the Moon, Mars and more

The Ad Astra 10 guitars are inspired by DeLonge's Custom Shop model, with each featuring fragments of different meteorites

Guitar World

“I’d heard these rumours that ‘it’s even been a sunburst’… I’ve read that one, too. But I could find no evidence of this”: Up close and personal with Gary Moore’s mythical 1960 Fender Stratocaster – the $330,000 Strat that lit up his Red House performance

Having just been auctioned for megabucks, we take a closer look at Moore's red Strat, sifting through the myths behind a guitar forever linked to his blazing 2004 performance of a Hendrix standard

Guitar World

“I’ve picked up others… they were like a piece of plywood. But not this one”: Gary Moore’s iconic red Stratocaster sells at auction for more than $330,000

This was the Strat that Moore played during his legendary 2004 performance of Red House – when people dared say it was better than Hendrix

Guitar World

“People think you can just drop it a few times and drag it down the street… but it’s actually a really intensive process”: The art of relic’ing a Fender guitar – and why it’s harder than you think

Fender’s Chief Product Officer explains the science behind a relic job, and why for many players it’s the best chance they’ll get to own a lived-in guitar

Guitar World

“I found this Junior on Reverb and it turned out to be Billie Joe Armstrong’s signature. It doesn’t look like other Juniors – it looks like a Fender”: Anglo-French blues-rocker Laura Cox on Les Pauls vs SGs, and getting huge tone from a Junior guitar

On Trouble Coming, Cox cuts loose, recording with the No Money Kids and showcasing her formidable slide chops

MusicRadar

"You never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul": Legendary $1 billion Jim Irsay Collection to be auctioned in 2026, including Kurt Cobain's Teen Spirit Fender Mustang

Auctions will begin in March next year

Guitar World

“I’m nervousof that guitar because it’s so expensive. I can barely look at it”: Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil on how you can shake the Earth with one finger, and why he fell in love with Kirk Hammett’s Greeny – even if he’s still Team Strat

With their 10th album, Futique, Biffy Clyro remind us exactly why they are one of the most important rock bands of the modern age

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