Cost: $649.00 new, check Reverb for even lower prices! Generously lent for review thanks to John from Armadillo Enterprises, Dean’s parent company! Overview and Final Score: 7.8 Dean’s Modern 24 is a mixed bag of luxury features and missing parts. While the tones you can get of the guitar are superb, and the playability isContinue reading “Dean Modern 24 Review”
Author Archives: Matt Dunn
5 Quick Ways to Upgrade a Cheap Stratocaster (Without Soldering)
Recently, we took a look at the uber affordable Glarry GST3, a $60 Stratocaster alternative available online through Amazon.com. While a functional guitar at that price is a great deal, let’s take a look at a few ways we can make the guitar more playable and hopefully better sounding. Without doing any soldering or drillingContinue reading “5 Quick Ways to Upgrade a Cheap Stratocaster (Without Soldering)”
Glarry GST3 Electric Guitar Review
Cost: $56.99 new from Glarrymusic.com or Amazon.com! Thanks to Glarry Music for sending this beautiful, affordable instrument over for review! Overview and Final Score: 3.9 Glarry Music’s GST3 is an affordable, Strat-style guitar meant to be an alternative to the thousands of Squier and Yamaha copies sold every year. While the guitar has an unbeatableContinue reading “Glarry GST3 Electric Guitar Review”
A Detailed Look Into Inexpensive Instruments Used by the Pros
As much as you may convince yourself that it takes perfect skill matched with perfect gear to achieve professional level performance, that’s not the whole story. More often than not, the guitar heroes you idolize today practiced, played, or wrote their hits on cheap instruments. In fact, many of today’s modern musicians still rely onContinue reading “A Detailed Look Into Inexpensive Instruments Used by the Pros”
Dr. J D-55 Aerolite Compressor Pedal Review
Cost: $99.00 new, find one of these awesome pedals on Amazon! How it Works and Final Score: 8.3 The Dr. J Aerolite Compressor pedal offers great compression while adding a few new dimensions to your tone such as sustain or boost when used correctly. With 4 knobs and one switch, there are plenty of parametersContinue reading “Dr. J D-55 Aerolite Compressor Pedal Review”
DR J Emerald Overdriver Pedal Review
Cost: $99.00 new, find one on Amazon! How it Works and Final Score: 7.7 For a $99 pedal, this thing sure has a lot of controls, helping give your overdriven tone an injection of variety not normally seen. First off, the two foot switches activate the overdrive itself and then an additional boost feature thatContinue reading “DR J Emerald Overdriver Pedal Review”
Orange Amplifiers Crush 20 Review
Cost: $139.00 new, find yours on Reverb.com or Amazon.com! How it Works and Final Score: 8.6 The Orange Crush 20 is a stripped down and straightforward solid state combo amp. While solid state amps often get a bad rap, most gear snobs will be impressed by the bruising crunch of the dirty channel that reallyContinue reading “Orange Amplifiers Crush 20 Review”
5 Reasons You Should Assemble a DIY Guitar Kit
As someone who always wanted to learn to build guitars, I naturally started by trying to assemble a kit. My first kit ever came from thefretwire.com, and was the ES-335/Trini Lopez model pictured in the About page. That guitar proved to be incredibly challenging and trying to wire a semi-hollow body guitar as my firstContinue reading “5 Reasons You Should Assemble a DIY Guitar Kit”
JHS Muffuletta Fuzz Pedal Review
Cost: $229.00 new, find one cheaper used on Reverb.com Shout out to Zach from JHS Pedals for lending and then selling this exceptional fuzz to me! How It Works and Final Score: 9.3 There is a lot to unbox with this pedal, despite it being incredibly user friendly with simple controls. First off, your threeContinue reading “JHS Muffuletta Fuzz Pedal Review”
Never Get Rid of Your First Guitar
Guitar gear can be a tricky topic in the music world, some musicians have one guitar they’ve used their whole life, it’s comfortable, familiar, and it sounds like them. Some use a few, or as many as a dozen different guitars on one album or one tour. Even amateurs will often be loyal to theirContinue reading “Never Get Rid of Your First Guitar”
