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REVIEW: Swart’s Immaculate Atomic Space Tone

25. September 2006

3 Comments

Handmade Quality, Atomic-Age Styling, Delicious All-Tube Tone When I first stumbled onto Michael Swart’s handsome tweed Atomic Space Tone tube amp, via the Swart Amplifier Co’s website, I may have been instantly struck by the retro-cool look of his handiwork, but I had no inclination that I was gazing upon one of the best sounding [...]

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REVIEW: Campbell American’s Precix

22. August 2006

3 Comments

I suppose this will come as no great surprise to most of my readers, but one of the nicest benefits of writing at EGR is that I get to play a whole lot of great instruments that I’d probably never have access to otherwise. Call me crazy, but this is the greatest job in the [...]

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REVIEW: Fender ’69 Telecaster Thinline

17. July 2006

8 Comments

One of the best performing, and most under-appreciated guitars I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning and playing was Fender’s semi-hollowbodied ’69 Telecaster Thinline reissue. Originally conceived and sold as a lighter-weight alternative to Fender’s standard Tele, the Thinline is actually much more than just an easier-on-the-arms Telecaster — it’s a beast all its own. [...]

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REVIEW: The Rickenbacker 620

19. June 2006

19 Comments

REVIEW: The Rickenbacker 620

High Sustain, Unique Tone & Style Unless you hang out in the right circles you really don’t hear much about Rickenbacker these days, which is really a shame when you consider that they continue to produce high-quality guitars, with truly one-of-a-kind styling and craftsmanship. In fact, in a world where badly-conceived Stratocaster and Les Paul [...]

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REVIEW: Gibson’s Classic ES-335 Hollowbody

6. June 2006

12 Comments

REVIEW: Gibson’s Classic ES-335 Hollowbody

Truly ‘Singing’ Tone & Sustain Gibson’s incredible ES-335 was first introduced to the world in 1958 as a guitar to bridge the gap between the popular hollowbody instruments of the day, and the newer, more streamlined solidbody models. It was apparently a stroke of genius on Gibson’s part, because the ES-335 has gone on to [...]

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REVIEW: Dunlop’s Rotovibe Expression Pedal

2. May 2006

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REVIEW: Dunlop’s Rotovibe Expression Pedal

Rotating Speaker Effects… Without The Speaker Way back in the day, when I couldn’t even begin to consider buying something as expensive and cool as Fender’s Custom Vibrolux guitar amp, I searched and searched for an alternative way to get that cool “Vibrato” sound, and was lucky enough to stumble upon the Dunlop RotoVibe. Of [...]

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REVIEW: Yamaha’s CG171SF Flamenco Guitar

27. April 2006

33 Comments

REVIEW: Yamaha’s CG171SF Flamenco Guitar

Excellent Tone & Playability While we’re on the subject of Flamenco, I thought I’d take a few moments to review an instrument that has to be one of the best deals going around in nylon-string guitars – Yamaha’s gorgeous, great-sounding, and cost effective CG171SF Flamenco guitar. Being a bit manic about authenticity, I was absolutely [...]

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REVIEW: Fender’s Reissue Blues Deluxe

29. March 2006

13 Comments

REVIEW: Fender’s Reissue Blues Deluxe

Vintage Tweed Sound & Style Much to their credit, when the demand for vintage-style sound equipment began to ramp-up again during the early 1990s, Fender was right there on top of it — they released their new, but decidedly retro-cool “Tweed” series of all-tube amplifiers in 1993 and I was lucky enough to purchase one [...]

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