Amps

This time around our annual Amp Issue is yet again packed with speaker-pumping coolness, including a cover story on seven amazing off-the-beaten-path vintage amps, six amp reviews—Vox’s MV50 AC, Hughes and Kettner’s Grandmeister Deluxe 40, the Hilbish Design Beta, and Black Wing’s Screamin’ Eagle 50, as well as Traynor’s SB106 bass combo and Glockenklang’s bass head—plus a feature all about speaker basics, and a DIY project on building your own rotary-speaker cab. Artist interviews this month include chats with Deep Purple’s Steve Morse, one-woman band Tash Sultana, legendary bassist/producer Bill Laswell, Havok’s David Sanchez and Reece Scruggs, and Franklin James Fisher and Lee Tesche from punk-gospel outfit Algiers. Meanwhile, in the print edition, we’ve got song tabs for Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage,” Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” and Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” The rest of our gear-review section is rounded out by deep-dives on Trace-Elliot’s Transit-A acoustic multi-effector, Curtis Novak’s JM-WR Jazzmaster Widerange pickups, the Dunable Cyclops solidbody, Death by Audio’s Evil Filter, the Martin O-18, Electro-Harmonix’s Bass Clone, Newman Guitars’ 6-String, and Mu-FX’s Phasor 2X.