Woods & Strings

High gain is where heavy metal lives, and since the 80s there's been no shortage of both amps and pedals designed to capture the right amount of clipping, distortion, grind and punch to deliver what demanding metalheads crave. A few years ago, Horizon Devices came out with their Apex preamp and Precision Drive, and these have since become industry standards for boutique-built sonic fury. The Precision Drive especially, developed by Misha Mansoor, is a djentleman's dream...a tight, crisp overdrive that doesn't overburden the amp tone, combined with an onboard noise gate that clamps the signal between notes, giving the user a scalpel-like precision in hard and fast rhythm passages. Well, this fall there are three signature dirt pedals that are making a huge splash in the marketplace; so much so that their builders are having trouble keeping them in stock. What's remarkable about these, though, is that of the three, only one is actually made by a traditional pedal company....

Quora Q: As a guitarist, what is something you wish you knew sooner about playing guitar? Kit guitars are every bit as playable and sound just as good (sometimes with minor modifications) as major brand guitars, for 1/10 of the price. Here’s a “Strat” I built from a kit last summer: The kit cost less that $130. I replaced the pickups with Fishmans, the tuners and nut with Graphtechs, and the bridge with a special GFS bridge (the only short-block Strat bridge with a full-sized block). In total, about $1,100. But out of the box, this guitar was 100% gig-ready with the usual minimal setup. It’s currently the main go-to guitar for everything I do in the studio. Had I known this 30 years ago when I started, I would have had a full wall of guitars by the time I was out of high school.