The January 2020 issue of Guitar Magazine is out now!
Inside: we round up the best guitar gear of the decade.
As the melancholy strains of Auld Lang Syne herald the end of another trip around the sun, we’re not just another year older – we’ve also reached the end of a decade. Music listening and music making have been transformed and reshaped by technology in recent years, and it’s something I reflect on in greater depth in our Gear Of The Decade cover feature, which charts a 10-year period during which digital technology for guitarists has come of age and delivered on many of its original promises.
Modelling tech isn’t a compromise or a guilty pleasure any more – it features in the backline and on the pedalboards of some of the world’s biggest artists and provides almost limitless scope for experimentation for even the most casual guitarist.
This month we also reveal the best products of 2019, as nominated by our expert panel and voted for by the Guitar.com audience – if you are planning to fork out hard cash on a guitar, amp, stompbox or accessory in the coming weeks, be sure to find out which pieces of kit set our pulses racing during the past 12 months.
Thinking back to 2010, I’m 90 per cent certain that not a single guitar, amp or pedal I owned then survives in my current rig today – and I can’t be the only one. Guitar trading is an entertaining sport in itself, and the hope is that one’s taste becomes more discerning over time. Yet as I type this, I’m in the process of wrapping up a deal to sell a guitar that I’m sure will come back to haunt me.
Please write in to editors@guitar.com to share your tales of guitar wheeler-dealing and horse trading, and if you have ‘before’ and ‘after’ rig shots from 2010 and 2019 respectively then I’d love to see those, too!
In the meantime, happy new year – I’ll see you in 2020…
Inside this issue
Here are the 10 pieces of guitar gear that represent the most game-changing, innovative and desirable product releases of the last 10 years.
2019 has been another banner year for all things guitar, and as we stand on the precipice of 2020, what better time to look back and examine the best products have have crossed our path in the last 12 months?