With a pair of P-90 pickups and a centre-block, this isn’t your average Gretsch – but it certainly makes a statement.

How do you make something that’s achingly cool even cooler? Throw rock’s most famous upholsterer and some crazy octave-fuzz fireworks into the mix, of course.

Towering amp stacks are rapidly going the way of the dodo, but players with pedalboard amps and micro-heads are looking for compact and lightweight speaker solutions. Honeyboy might just have the answer.

Combining vampy looks with a pair of foil-topped mini-humbuckers, the reborn Harmony range’s resident offset promises distinctive tones to match its premium build.

British-made Grimshaw guitars of the early 60s could hold their own with many of the USA-made instruments of the time, but this SS Deluxe model needs a little TLC.

Standout compressors for your next stompbox squeeze.

From distorted ring-modulation to pitch-drifting stereo delay, these stompboxes will attach rocket engines to your pedalboard and blast it into the next galaxy. Metaphorically.

In the second dose of Michael James Adams’ new guitar tech column, he dives into the mysterious world of the Jazzmaster trem-lock.

When Pink Floyd started out in the psychedelic mid 1960s, they were playing clubs, led by Syd Barrett on guitar. But once David Gilmour took over, they evolved into a stadium-rock band and began crafting extravagant concept albums. Now one of the biggest-selling acts of all time, you can bet they knew how to write an interesting chord sequence.

Now that you’ve mastered the basics of the pentatonic scale, it’s time to look at the masters themselves to see how the most legendary blues players utilise the shapes we’ve learned in their own playing. First up, it’s Old Slowhand.

We round-up our year-long exploration of the basics of blue by finishing off the five basic shapes of the pentatonic scale.

Continuing our look at the essential tools for the budding blues guitarist, here we take a deep dive into another shape of the humble minor pentatonic.