Guitars For Idiots Is Going Grassroots For 2024’s Gear Reviews

There will be more of a focus on smaller, less talked about gear brands and builders, but still plenty of punk rock.

2023 was another great year for all things guitar. We unveiled our top pedal rankings, compared our favorite guitars, and even talked about all the accessories, parts, and amps too. And with all that in the rear view mirror and a brand new year approaching, it is time to look ahead.

Of course I can never predict the future, so who really knows what 2024 is going to look like. But for the now, here’s the plan. 2023 had a lot of high end reviews and was heavy on big box brands as well. This is good, because those tend to accumulate a lot of views, and it’s an honor that I get to work with PRS, Fender, and Universal Audio year in and year out.

But I’ve decided that to start 2024, I’m going to keep most of those big brand reviews and demos on Ultimate-Guitar instead of this site. If you want the heavy hitting, hottest, trendiest gear, you can always access my writing free of charge there. I’ll probably still sprinkle in a few Squier and Fender reviews here and there, just to help boost clicks. But 2024 is the year that Guitars For Idiots covers smaller brands, some local builders, and generally acts as a support network to help these small business out.

One thing that’s been abundantly clear in my 5 years of guitar gear coverage is that you never know which small brand will blow up next. Seriously, there’s so many amazingly creative people building guitar gear, I had no idea that Summer School Electronics or Poison Noises would reach the levels they have when I reviewed the Crook or Gus Drive. They were just two of a plethora of small builders that I had chatted with on Instagram.

We’re also going to go back to covering some cheaper guitars. More random guitar brands that pop up on Amazon, maybe this year I’ll finally bite the bullet and see what kind of whacky/cheap stuff I can find on DHgate or AliExpress. You can also find some cheaper pedals in the queue for review as well. In fact, we already have an affordable Mosky reverb up on the site.

Some cool pedal brands that you should see on here in 2023 include Wonderful Audio Technology, Drunk Beaver Pedals, Eddie Rifkind Effects, Stromer Mutroniks, Winnipeg Electrical Co, and ALABS Audio among others. Who else do you want to read about/watch?

We’ll also have some local builders from New England like Lord Guitars, Maghini Guitars, Photo Booth Sound Design, and Jadeworks Instruments.

Lots going on, and as always we aim to have another ~30 pedal reviews and ~15 guitar reviews in store for the year!