Blutone's Boutique Baby!

The PRS Guitars NF53 and Myles Kennedy  On June 21 2023, PRS announced the release of their new bolt on guitars, the NF53 and the Myles Kennedy signature guitar. Having already reimagined the S-Style with the help of one John Mayer, causing controversy as well as producing an army of Silver Sky players, PRS have turned their hands to the 'other style' guitar with the help of Alter Bridge's Myles Kennedy for the signature and Paul Reed Smith for the NF53 inspired by his own 1953 Vintage classic that is in his private collection. Both are maple necks with , 25.5" scale, 10" radius and 22 frets with subtly different body shapes.  Each model comes with their own colour options and, perhaps more importantly, also differ tonally. Both guitars use newly designed Narrow Field pickups that include longer bobbins to exaggerate the  windings, but they differ in specific design within this new category of pickup.  The NF53 utilises the traditional wiring pattern of a telecast...

  Some weeks ago, the problem I was having with my pick up selector switch on my PRS Guitars SE Starla (which has been with the guitar since I got it a year and a half ago), finally came to a head and made the guitar unusable.   I should have got it fixed during it's warranty period but thought it just needed some switch cleaner to fix the issue....How wrong was I!! Anyway the video below is about what happened next! Key Links: Find out more about the PRS SE Starla. Click here. Check out my YouTube Channel. Click here. Check out the C.R.L 3 Way Switch from North East Guitars. Click here.

 A versatile tone machine. More than a decade ago I was in Las Vegas and I visited the Guitar Center  and I spent some time trying out what (in my mind) I called a 'Telecaster Stratocaster".  It was a Fender Telecaster body and neck but had a three single coil pickup set up not too dissimilar to that of a Stratocaster.  I am a huge single cut guitar fan and for me I wondered if this could be the guitar for me that would give me Strat tones on a telecaster platform.  The reality is that this is not a Stratocaster tone machine, it is it's own unique 'thing'. At the time I didn't really appreciate that.   I didn't purchase that beautiful guitar because, despite at the time the currency rate meant that I could have had it at effectively half price, I also had to get it on a plane. The shop assistant suggested that I remove the neck in order to fold it into my luggage but that seemed absolutely ridiculous (with what I know now, I might have done it, but the...

The Boss Nextone Artist changed everything for me! Since buying this amp in early 2022, I have not looked back.  It is not a valve amp, technically not a modelling amp but an awesome tweakable amp that allows the user to work with different power stages based on tube configurations such as 6v6, 6L6 (US Style) EL34 and EL84 (UK Style) tube set ups. Personally I use it mostly as a pedal platform but the onboard tremolo and delay make this amp a versatile tone deliverer in most settings. This amp is 80 watts (simulated tube power rating) and I probably should have gone for the Nextone Stage at 40W as I simply have not cranked this amp at all.  It is LOUD!  The beauty is that the head room is awesome and for practising you can set it to 40W or 0.5W.  It even lets you output the signal for recording via USB or jack.  You even get to play with the settings on a PC using the USB cable. Have a listen and tell me what you think? I tend not to connect my amps directly to...

A standard feature of Epiphone and Gibson guitars that you may not have even noticed! After a false start purchasing the Epiphone Emperor Swingster from GAK, and having to send it back and get it replaced (see video below), I have been really pleased with my new purchase. I have enjoyed getting to know this guitar as it is different from most of the guitars that I have owned over the years.  The closest I have gotten will have been my Epiphone The Dot guitar which was nice but I didn’t really connect with it. With this guitar I have enjoyed the wire handled Bigsby tremolo and the range of tones that I can get from the pickups but something happened yesterday that surprised me… As you will know, Epiphone and Gibson guitars like this one have four control knobs, two tones and two volumes.  One for each pickup.  The pickup selector switch allows one to switch between the individual pickups or have them both selected at the same time. I thought I would have some fun trying to...

  After a month of playing with the Chapman ML 1X, I am keen to share with you what I have found about this striking guitar. If you follow my articles and videos then you will know that I have borrowed a Chapman ML1X from Chapman Guitars  in order to see how it sat with my own style of playing.  Rob Chapman once described his guitars as knocking on the door of "heavy, scary, pointy guitars" and this is certainly the impression that I had about Chapman guitars, hence why I have never purchased one.  I mean lets be honest, personally I am a Blues player and Blues players don't use scary, pointy guitars! Or do they? The video below explores blues artists who have played 'scary and pointy' guitars in the past and includes some sample tones played by myself on this guitar.  Read on further for my full review of the Chapman ML1X. Reviewing the Chapman ML1X electric guitar in Deep Red Gloss. The Specifications. The Chapman ML1X is an Super S-Style (HSS) equipped with ...

When I visited the Guitar Show UK , I had a list of guitars that I wanted to try out, most of which were mid range and up in price but I did have an outlier that I wanted to check out. Jet Guitars. Jet Guitars are a budget guitar company that claims to do the following: "JET guitars offer a premium playing experience at an affordable price." So there must be hundreds of brands doing something similar such as Squire, Cort, Harley Benton and many more, so how is Jet going to stand out? The Jet Guitars JS-400 in Sea Foam Green Relic So I have to say that I was setting a low expectation.  I knew how cheap these guitars retailed for and surely any profit they make would be based on many unit sales rather than per unit at these prices, especially as they work through the distributor Hal Leonard , who would need to have some kind of margin. My expectation with Jet Guitars was that I was going to be trying out something that was probably going to be well built but not something that ...