2023's Top And Flop Guitar Gear: The Ultimate Guide

welcome back folks my name is Shane it's that time of year where I do my annual end of your wrapup for the best and worst guitar products of the Year this is my seventh annual one that's right you go back 7 years as of releasing this video and this has become a bit of a tradition on the IND the blues channel that a lot of other channels have now stolen but that's okay that's how YouTube works but anyway thanks for watching I really appreciate it this will be a recap of all the best worst and most Innovative gear of the year I've been so lucky to test so many great products out whether it's on loan from friends on loan from Sky music or if it was sent directly into the channel or if I actually purchased it so there's a good mix of everything in this particular video each of these sections will be broken down into time stamps in the description and links for all the stuff that I can find will also be down there as well if you want to check it out in your part of the world if you like what I do leave a thumbs up comment below if we can get this video to 500 or 1,000 thumbs up that would be amazing if you do enjoy it so thank you so much thanks for sticking with me over the course of this year year I've been doing this a very long time after all these years I'm really thankful I get to do this as my daytime gig so thank you so much for the support it wouldn't work without you I'm really looking forward to getting into this particular video and I know a lot of people will skip to the worst section but watch the whole thing first if you can I really appreciate it then you can skip around anyway whatever you want to do that's totally fine let's get into it all right let's kick this off so each year I do these videos I always like to throw in a brand new section so the brand new section for this year is the most device that's right the most divisive product of 2023 stuff where I see the comment section blow up for both whether people like it or whether they can't stand it whether they think it's too expensive whether you know whatever the case may be right so the most divisive product of 20123 without question was the fender tone Master Pro multi effects processor pedal man I've never seen so many people love the idea of it and so many people absolutely hate it and I get it right so it's one of those product that not everyone will like it really serves a very particular purpose I want to talk about some of the stuff I saw in the comment section so I'm just referencing some notes here so the first thing that came up was it was overpriced and I agree it's very expensive but the form factor is very different and that's where I think that's a little bit more Justified we get that touchscreen display which I really liked and I thought the tone sounded okay but it had this really slow boot up time almost a minute you turn it on you got to wait almost a minute for it to kick into gear which I didn't really love but overall the user interface was good it looks cool but it's definitely not for everybody and you can get pretty much the same tone by buying almost any other type of product it's just the user experience is very different so you'll either like it or you won't but comment below let us know what you thought of the fender tone Master Pro I'm next I'm going to talk about the most Innovative guitar product of the Year this isn't necessarily the best product of the year but it's still made the best list but I'm putting this as the most Innovative So Not only would it be in my best pedals of the year it's also the most Innovative and this is the game changer audio Bigsby pedal there's so many pedals that are copies of other circuits there's like 1500 Marshall in a box pedals all that kind of stuff now and this was just something completely different I think it caught everybody off guard if you're unfamiliar with this pedal it basically looks like a Bigby that you would find on a guitar that's the whole idea right but it's so much more than that so it can do the traditional Bigby sound and you can set which mode you want it to work in so as you push your foot down it can either be in arm down mode or arm back mode it's pretty cool it's a little bit different and it takes a while to get the feel for but once you get the feel for it it's actually really Musical and if you love you know the sounds of the 50s and sort of early 60s you can get those kind of tones but again it does so much more than that you can go for a pulsing tremolo an octave and this really cool doubling chorus effect which is great for solos it's excellent to see some innovation in the space of pedals it's been few and far between sure there's more affordable options of certain pedals out there and there's always improvements to existing designs but this was just something that was completely different and it's so much more than just a one trick pony so well done Game Changer audio for producing the most Innovative guitar product of 2023 well done all right over to the best guitar shops of 2023 now if you know the channel or if you don't I have a guitar search Saturday series which is completely unsponsored this is where I go somewhere on vacation or travels whatever the case may be and I do virtual guitar walkthroughs in of the guitar shops that kind of let me do it I love doing it it's great to Showcase guitar shops from all around the world now one of the shops I went into this year which I was really surprised by was called Mega music now they have two but the one that we went in was in myerie Perth in Western Australia not only is this place massive they got so many great guitars and they actually let me test out an original clone worth I think around 8 Grand or something like that I can't remember off the top of my head $8,000 Australian doar for those wondering just an amazing guitar car shop I mean they had everything in there one of the best Gibson walls I've seen anywhere in combination with just a jammed pack electric and acoustic section you have the acoustic section you kind of walk through these little maze of small rooms and there's just Martins and and Cole Clarks and maen guitars all over the walls so yeah fantastic shop if you're in the city of Perth in Western Australia go check out Mega Music it was an absolute pleasure doing that walkthrough in that store they just had so much great stuff and I featured some of those little clips from that particular guitar search Saturday episode in YouTube short so you might have seen some double up there but yeah if you are unfamiliar with that series again I'll link it down below I put a lot of work into that and I'd love to see that sort of take off one of these days but more guitar search Saturdays coming up in 20124 all right up next I've got a miscellaneous category which I'm going to share with you this is all the other stuff that isn't a guitar amplifier or a standard effects pedal so let's talk about one of the things that I bought that I'm absolutely loving and that is the set of lace sensor gold pickups now the these have a single coil sound but they're far less noisy than the pickups I had in my Fender American original 50 Strat now these videos just went up recently so you might already be familiar with them after slightly adjusting the height I was able to get a really great sound out of them to the point where I didn't even notice the difference between the L sensors and my original pickups now when you hear comparison videos between pickups one thing that a lot of people don't realize is if you don't leave the amp set the same everyone will winge in the comment section what I would inherently do if I pickups is to req the amplifier to suit the pickups which is not what I did in that AB comparison but I love these pickups they cut the Noise by about 60 70% somewhere around there and you're essentially getting a single coil top end which a lot of pickups that are straight up noiseless like some offender ones have more of a clacky sound or they're a bit sharp on the top end and not in the single coil kind of way um but not all of them obviously there's some that sound fantastic but these gold L sensor pickups really cut the noise down they look super cool which is a little bit on the shallow side but I think they're a great pickup and obviously the biggest inspiration for me was uh there's a clip called grown in the Blues by Eric Clapton from his from the cradle tour and it's so good man if you haven't seen that I'll link it down below as well you got to see this video and that tone was just fantastic and while I can't play like that that was the inspiration for getting less Buzz great tone and epic sustain the sustain out of these pickups are great I'm not just one of those Couch Potato YouTube channels who sits at home playing and testing gear actually go take the stuff out and play it live and I've played these pickups live enough to know now that I don't regret doing that pickup swap whatsoever now I've also got the original pickups here so maybe there might be room for another Strat maybe we'll do a mod coming up next year who knows but as of right now man the L sensor gold pickups they're like 30 years old and it's still one of the best pickups you can buy even in 2023 going into 2024 so if you thinking about it and you like low output single coils like I do then you're going to get a kick out of these L sense of gold they're really something else another really great miscellaneous product of 2023 was the flammer fx10 headphone amplifier now this is very similar to the technology found in something like the Fender Mustang micro except it's made by a brand that's not really a household name I think the biggest advantages of this is one it's less expensive two it sounds just as good and while it's a little bit tricky to master because everything's kind of colorcoded in a in a handful of buttons you know the sound quality of this thing is great and if you're looking for a portable headphone amplifier fire that you can just plug directly into any guitar then you're going to be fine I tested this on my Flying V my stratas my Telecaster all that kind of stuff and I had no problems with the connection with the Jack or anything so I can highly recommend this especially given the price this is one of those products that you can get really great tones out of if you just want to practice with headphones or of course you can go out to a computer and record that way it's pretty cool you know the digital modeling Technologies come so far these days where even something as small and inexpensive as this can get you really great results so it's a good time to be playing guitar there's something for everybody at every price point and while this again is a little bit trickier to get your head around initially it's by far one of the best products of 2023 over to maybe the most affordable product on this list from artist guitars this is the artist W gs10 Wireless pack now a few of my good friends now own this particular pack and they use them out at the jams all of the time and they work great and I've been using them on my videos if you've ever seen me with the wireless pack it's the W gs10 now the time of filming I think they're around $779 or something Australian artist guitars are an Australian company but they have a couple of different web shops in the UK New Zealand and in the US but the stock completely varies and if I can find a link for this I'll put it down below but definitely give it a look this particular pack has excellent range it's dirt cheap as well which is great I've had no problems with interference or anything like that I guess the only downside to this which I listed in my review video was that it's a micro USB connection instead of a USBC which I much prefer micro are a little bit sort of fiddly but basically with that aside it comes with all the cables you need to charge them up they hold charge for several hours and I've had no problems with them and I tested them out in the park when I did my review at a distance and it worked beautifully so yeah artist guitars the artist W gs10 is a great little Wireless pack if you're on a budget looking to you know have the freedom of no cables it's pretty cool over to my favorite microphone of 2023 when it comes to recording electric guitar cabinets this just makes the job a whole lot easier this is the Austrian audio od5 and you can tell already it's quite a bit different right so it looks very different to like an sm57 or Sennheiser e906 this is a dynamic microphone but it requires phantom power the biggest benefit of this is that you don't have to run the preamp as hard which is great if you want to do something like vocals or something that's you know not as loud as an electric guitar cab but it has this rotating basket on the front here so it allows you to mic up amplifiers a lot easier than conventional mics that only face one way it's really handy so irrespective of the stand that you've got this on you can make it work for your cabinet when it comes to sound quality this is very similar to an sm57 but it has more of a full range sound so if you like an sm57 but you just wish it wasn't as sort of mid-heavy or focused this is a really great choice I actually prefer this over the Sennheiser e906 I love the e906 in combination with an sm57 but this has the best of both worlds in a single design the capsule slightly bigger just gives you a little bit of a bigger sound now on the back we get a DB pad so we can reduce the input gain by 10 DB and we also have a high pass filter that we can run or Notch at either 80 HZ or 120 HZ again it's the mic stand experience you can plunk this on any mic stand and mic up your cabinet without really having to struggle but the audio quality of it is also very good so I had to put this into the best of 2023 because I'm actually using it and really enjoying it if you're looking for a microphone that's a little bit different definitely check this guy out one of the things that was sent out to the channel quite some time ago that's really made my studio experience a lot easier is the atom audio a7v monitors now these give you excellent audio quality and since moving over to the atom audio monitors from my old krk rocket eight it's really made a huge difference to my end result it's made the mixing experience easier as well because the frequencies are a lot more balanced than they were on the rocket 8s which just had way too much low end so the benefit of these particular studio monitors is the got customizable curves so if you're in a room that needs more base or less bass or more treble whatever the case may be there's literally an EQ button on the back you can tap and cycle through that whether I'm mixing a Jam track at the start of a video or whether I'm mixing a full band in the keys to the guitar shop series these have just made the job a whole lot easier they're really great set of speakers and if you're looking to upgrade definitely give these guys a look and I'll link them down below let's cover the best practice amplifiers of 2023 then we'll go over to the actual gigging or larger amplifies first one that just came to mind straight away was the new xbt light Mark I this takes all the great stuff I loved about the original BT light and gives us more presets that we can cycle through and just more overall flexibility and functionality it's essentially the same so if you have the first version it's probably not worth upgrading to the second but I think this represents some of the best value for money in a small practice amplifier now there's some trade-offs with it which we'll get to but basically this can work as an audio interace face so if you don't have a sound card and you want to record premium sounding electric guitar tones for about 100 bucks this is the way to do it you can simply plug the practice amp directly into the computer select it as an audio interface cycle through the guitar tones and you're going to be laughing it sounds so good right but it also works great as a lightweight portable practice amp now this is slightly bigger than the positive grid spark go so just keep that in mind there it is slightly bigger but it's nice and light it's less expensive and it's can either run on battery or USBC power you can essentially just power this all day with that or a USBC cable from a computer it's just got excellent tones it's got excellent value for money and it's definitely the best small practice amplifier for the price I don't think it even comes close I can't think of anything else I've tested over the years except for the original Mighty light BT that's as good as this so yeah if you're looking for the best most affordable practice amplifier in a small compact form factor you can't go too far wrong with this the next small practice amp I'm throwing on this list is the positive grid spark go now I was able to borrow this off my friend Rick and it's a really great small practice amplifier that gives you pretty similar tones to that of the new xbt light Mark I except the amp itself is smaller it's quite shocking just how small it is now I did find it lacked a little bit of low end obviously because the speakers are tiny of course but it actually sounds pretty good considering its size there are a few trade-offs with this one over the new X1 it's a a little too easy to topple over if you're using a cable I know they make this like strap thing that you can hook it onto your guitar but that's not very practical unless you're really standing up and playing so if you plan on using this on a desk I suggest buying a wireless pack I think a wireless pack with this would be a no-brainer and it also has a lot of paid DLC so downloadable content that you have to buy after the fact I don't really like that kind of stuff if you buy a product there just another way to milk people out of money so I can tell you what minus the fact that you it's got DLC and it can fall over a bit easier if you're using a cable it's a pretty cool unit I think if you're looking for the smallest most portable travel item in terms of a guitar amp that has a speaker built into it this would be the top of the list so there are some trade-offs with this but I liked it enough to still throw it in the best of 2023 this next amplifier is one I had a chance to test out earlier in the year this is the Yamaha th hr3 Mark I now this is an electric guitar amplifier and there's a lot of things to like about this except for the price so it's more expensive I think it's maybe a little overpriced in my opinion but you're getting a pretty powerful and unique looking desktop amplifier so if that's what you're looking for and I think it's selling point at least to me was it Simplicity you get this one big dial on the top that you can cycle through a lot of the tones you can also store your own presets and all that kind of stuff but I love its easy interface and its audio quality is great it almost has like a produced sound so if you go over to some of the Marshall style drivve tones it it has like a recorded sound about it which is pretty cool so having this sort of audio quality this device makes it easy whether you're miking the amp up with any type of microphone like I showcased in my video or if you're using it as an audio interface directly into a computer so it has all that functionality as well there's enough effects to keep most people happy built into this as well including flanges delays reverbs all that kind of stuff this is great if you want sort of like a low volume late night practice amplifier you can plug in some headphones or of course just turn it down still get a really great sound you know most sort of standard guitar amps sound better the further you turn them up but once you start talking about like little practice amplifiers I think they shine at lower volumes the further you turn them up the more the speakers can struggle with most of them and you know this sort of sounds great at moderate volume so it does a really great job while this amplifier is a little on the expensive side it's definitely unique and interesting enough to make the best of 2023 so if you have one of these let us know what you think I had a lot of fun reviewing that that intro track I shot for that video was one of my favorites if you missed that video I'll link it in the description all right let's get into some of the more professional amplifiers so if you missed my video just maybe a few months ago as of shooting this video I actually repurchased a PV Studio Pro 1112 or 112 however you want to say that this is basically like the smaller version of the Bandit it was a red stripe amplifier and it has very usable channels whether we're talking about the clean it has two separate voicings or the three voicing Drive Channel you can get so much out of this it's funny as you're playing improves in your ear for the particular type of sound that you like change changes over time I was able to get much better tones out of the PV Studio Pro 112 this time around than the time prior and it felt way louder than I remember as well so yeah there's something to be said about that this amplifier was great I actually purchased it for myself but a made of mine was also looking at the same amp online and I ended up just gifting it to him because realistically I had so many amplifiers here at the house but it's a killer amplifier you can find these do cheap on the used Market if you're thinking about getting a Studio Pro 112 you can either get the silver stripe one or the redri one which is my personal favorite now these red stripe ones are either made in China or in the USA depending on where you live around the world I think the US ones mostly found in the US but here in Australia and other parts of the world you'll probably find that they're made in China it will also depend on the year that they're made but I think these were out of the early 2000s and late 90s and all that kind of stuff but great amplifiers man just super fun to go back to one of my favorite amps of all time it's funny after I gave it away I was like watch the video again I was like man that sounded pretty good but don't need any more amps Famous Last Words let's talk about the joyo amplifiers I reviewed over the course of the last few months so I couldn't decide which one to put in here so I'm putting all three in the best of 2023 there's a lot to like about these new amps so the Tweety the Jackman 2 and the Zombie 2 the Lucho fi Zombie 2 go check out that movie after you've watched this it's one of this weirdo's favorite movies of all time you'll actually see that mask in the movie too there's a lot of common ground and also some upgrades over the original amplifier so we still get an effects Loop we now get a dedicated switch included in the box so we can switch between the clean and dirty Channel Now The Originals also had a clean and dirty Channel but you were forced to kind of switch them on the Fly and you only had one set of EQ controls so these new ones give us two rows of controls we get a gain control we get a master output for basically both channels allowing us to get really great tones whether you're playing clean or dirty now if you're unfamiliar with these amps the twey is based on a fender and it still gives us the same voicing control we found on the joyo American sound pedal I reviewed many years ago to go making it possible to get basically anything from like a Fender Twin or Princeton clean tone all the way through to a pushed midstone whether we're on the drive Channel or the clean channel it's really cool the Jackman 2 is based on a marshall jcm 800 style circuit and the Zombie 2 is based on the Boogie so the Boogie tone man on that drive channel is Killer being that these are rated at 20 wats I think with the right Speaker Cabinet you would have no problems cutting the mix at a gig provided your drummer isn't too over the toop loud now I don't know about your particular band but for the kind of bluesy stuff I play I would have no hesitations using this with a competent speaker box and I say competent because I don't think that the joyo band cab really does these amplifiers any favors unless you just want to practice at lower volumes at home but if you want to take these out and go play Live these are easily loud enough they're way louder than you think if you're looking for an affordable 20 W amplifier that's class D in the power section so it's nice and light it won't blow up if you forget to plug in the speaker cabinet then these are a really great choice you also get the warmth of that real 12 X7 in the preamp I'm a big fan of these amps I was really shocked just how much better I thought they were than the prior version which I liked a lot if you're looking for something different give these a look I'll link them down below up next is the artist tweet tone 12a this is kind of like the smaller brother of the artist tweet tone 20R that I reviewed 4 years ago 4 years ago man time is flying this amp isn't as powerful and it's slightly smaller physically so we still get a 12-in speaker and it's rated at 12 wats but we don't have Reverb we don't have the Dual Channel design the three band EQ and the game controls and all that kind of stuff it's literally a volume and tone control we get a bright and normal switch as well so you can kind of change the voicing there and there's a negative feedback switch for increased tone and sort of like harmonic overtones and all that kind of stuff the benefit of this amp is you get a beautiful clean tone at a low volume and then if you want you can run your favorite pedals into it and it sounds great and I've tested this outside of the house once and it was good enough for a small gig but any louder than that I would need to mic up so yeah not as loud as the artist tweet tone 20R but a great little amp for home studio Enthusiast or someone who wants to record or play you know like a cafe gig that's where this kind of thing would shine you don't want to get too loud with this one because with tweet amps and this one is no exception once you get the volume up past about 12 it doesn't really get any louder it just starts to get more sort of edgy and broken up so yeah that's kind of the way that these amps work and this is a really great pedal platform with the gain down you can kind of Jack the volume up by hitting the front end with your favorite overdrive or Distortion now I've got to tell you this amp won't be for everybody there's no reverse There's No Effects loop it's just a straight up old school Tweed style amplifier that's what I kind of like about it up next is the angle Thunder 50 Reverb this is a 50 W combo that sounds ridiculously good angle I always thought was just for metal players because maybe the visual of it lends itself to just being popular with metal players but the clean tone is so focused I love it it's funny when I did the comparison up against the Blues Deluxe for those who don't know I've got an eminent Swamp Thing speaker in there the fender had the bright switch on and the treble cranked the presence on and I couldn't even match close to the same sort of deess of the angle the angles clean Channel just left it for dead it was quite shocking not only that it's a great pedal platform as well thanks to that really focused tone it never gets flubby or weird on the low end it has all the top end that you want you can actually back it off a bit if you not a huge fan of sort of like its Clarity so that's up to you but this is a two channel amp and if you miss my comparison video with the Marshall INF Fender the drive channel is every bit as good as the Marshall DSL 40cr it's just a little bit different so it's of the most versatile two channel combos I've ever used the only problem with it is one they're hard to find unless you go on reverb or some of the um bulletin board sort of web pages and secondly it's a bit too heavy it's a absolute spine tingling back break and amplifier but I tell you what after using them in the studio and also playing them out live these amplifiers are ridiculously fun so in Australia you can actually find them for a pretty good deal hopefully this doesn't change that but if I can find one of these in Australia for a good price in good condition I'm going to be buying one my good friend Dave who I showcased on the channel a few times he's got plenty of great amplifi so we might have to go through a few more of his collection in 2024 one of the things that really shocked me in 2023 was that Marshall reached out to me to review the Marshall jtm Studio Mark II freaking awesome amplifier now it's funny you know like people complain about stuff being made in China or Indonesia whatever and then when stuff's made in the UK Australia or in the US it's more expensive right that's the way that it works so you this is one of those sort of divisive amplifiers as well based on its price but I love this thing and I think you know if you are unfamiliar with it it's sitting right behind me here and they were nice enough to send out that killer 2x2 cab now this is made in the UK and it's an old school style amplifier so no Reverb or anything like that but we do get an effect loop on the back and I got to tell you if you're a strat player this is maybe the best combination you're going to get the tones out of this amplifier on the high treble Channel with a Stratocaster were phenomenal you can just get get all the classic tones out of it and then of course if you want to rock it up and get those old school kind of Blues breaker sounds with some humbuckers you can do that as well but I love the Stratocaster tones out of the Marshall it's an absolute ball Terror when it comes to its sound now I haven't tried the combo I've only tested the head and box so if you've already got the combo let us know what you think of that but the head and cab is a really great combination I'm so thankful I got this 2x12 cab too because it's actually not that heavy it's quite tall and kind of long but it's definitely nowhere near as heavy as some of my combo amp so it's pretty portable considering how large it actually is but I love the look of it I love the build quality I love the tones especially again when you're playing a Stratocaster over my favorite amplifier combo for 2023 this would be the Sirius amplification Dirty Shirley this is made in Melbourne Australia not far from where I live actually it's an unbelievably great sounding amplifier it has the full bodied sound there's no cabinet rattle it just gives you all the great stuff it's super Dynamic there's enough voicing controls to get the kind of sound that you want out of it yet it's very simple to operate now there's no Reverb but funnily enough I didn't miss it whatsoever because the tone was so great there's been a few times where I plugged into amps and I just couldn't believe the sound that was coming out of it the first time was a two Rock amplifier that I ended up buying later it was the fender super Reverb just a beautiful sounding amp and the third amp in this list is this this amplifier has just got it all man if you're looking for a combo started with a 12-in celestian speaker you know you can get so much out of this especially if you're a blues or blues rock player even going into sort of that classic rock territory this is unbelievable but there's a few small trade-offs with it one there's no Reverb definitely not a deal breaker I felt like I didn't even miss it that's how great the tone was it had epic sustain it had all the right stuff but yeah it was just also very heavy so I'd love to see sort of like a slightly stripped down version of this in terms of its physical size but no cabinet rattle no weird stuff going on just really great tone and yeah I I got to tell you man if you're looking for something different you're live in Melbourne Australia or if you can ship overseas go check out the Sirius amplification website just beautiful stuff from Alex he makes really great stuff check it out in the description box and lastly on this list is the Taurus amplification stomp head 8 Cube now this may look like a blug amplifier but they were making these long before blug were making their amplifier so these guys are pretty much the innovators of this particular type of amp now if you haven't seen one of these before they're like a pedal board amplifier that you can actually power a 2x12 or a 1x12 or whatever you choose to power with it it's awesome the clean channel is great it's got a built-in Reverb circuit we can also switch over to the drive Channel and assign a dedicated boost now the Boost is very similar to one of my favorite pedals of the year which we'll talk about a little bit later on but you can essentially bring in some tube harmonics as there's nice big valve right in the middle there you can also run this as a dedicated PA speaker as well so it's very flexible and functional thanks to the Bluetooth connectivity you can play music back through a front house house Speaker whatever the case may be tone wise this was really impressive I kind of felt like this might be the future for electric guitar amps moving forward when portability is one of the things that you can't live without or space right I mean look how small this is compared to a conventional head while this amplifier does say 130 Watts on the front if you're running it into a guitar cabinet it's either 50 or 25 so it has a built-in power attenuator in it as well which is fantastic this is just one of those amplifiers that really ticks a lot of boxes tone wise for me I love the simplic of it and the fact you can get so many different types of gain structures and tones out of this just by flicking a few stle switches makes this by far one of the most impressive products of 2023 so well done Taurus amplification over to my Roundup of the best electric guitars of 2023 so I have a few criteria that guitars have to meet before getting into this list they have to sound great feel great and also play great so anything that was set up like a dud didn't make the list anything that doesn't sound great also didn't make the list these are Cut Above the Rest in terms of tone feel all that kind of stuff the first guitar I have to put on this list is this this is the mayb guitars Fish Hook s made in s England this is made from reclaimed Timbers it has a really unique textured finish here it's really beautiful the neck itself I think is a squire neck but the body was made from 100y old floor joist which is pretty cool some of the things that really set this apart from a lot of the competition is not only is it nice and Light which is always a good thing the pickups are so musical these are sunbear humbucker pickups that have all the clarity in the world they like a better version of a burstbucker which is my favorite Gibson hucker so they've done a really great job at sunbear pickups making this particular humbucker pickup it's very simple we get our three-way toggle switch volume and two tone controls comes in a nice case and it's just something very different this guitar actually won an award in a magazine that I saw on Instagram from Jason's uh Instagram page from maber guitars and no wonder why because it's freaking awesome I've been playing this on so many videos over the last few months since I moved into this house and then this arrived so it's just been an absolute pleasure and I'm under no obligation to play a guitar once it's sent out or whatever the case may be the ones you see the most are the ones that I'm enjoying the most and this is first on the list this next guitar really impressed me to the point where I had to put it on this list and it was a recent review so a few days ago before posting this video I posted a video about the Fender Custom Shop 50s journeyman Relic Telecaster this thing sounded so great always referenced a black Relic telecast from many years ago that I showcased on the channel anytime I'm talking about the best T that I've ever heard I think this one has it beat not only is this guitar a pleasure to play it has that really well worn neck from that whole Relic thing which won't be for everybody essentially if you haven't played a relic guitar neck before they feel so good man Fender get it right they really do get it right now this guitar is way too expensive but it has two of the best single coils I've ever heard in a Telecaster they're the Twisted Telly ones and the bridge pickup is actually the plate itself is a right-handed plate so the angle of the bridge pickup is reversed to normal which I think contributes to some of the steeliness of this particular tone this guitar was in a different League tone-wise to my 50s American original telecast it wasn't even close the pickup sounded way more lively it had a brighter sound and just sort of had more cut and as I stacked on more drive it handled it really well so whether I was playing slide you know clean or lead parts just doing solos it really did sound great now these are too expensive for me and they might be too expensive you I'm not too sure but I tell you what if you're looking for arguably the best Telecaster that I've personally played in terms of tone this would be top of the list now if you know my channel I've got a bit of a LoveHate relationship with Gibson I think they make great guitars sometimes and other times they make absolute Duds this video will be up right after this video goes live most likely or a day before I'm not exactly sure yet but it's an es335 now I owned one of these back in 2007 it was an absolute dog but back then I didn't know any better it was the only Lefty I could find was one model at that particular time in one shop so I was like all right this might be my only chance I'll get it so after playing a 2023 es335 it's not even close this guitar even kills my old ma in Japan toy 145 L which I absolutely love that was the best 335 tone I've ever had after going from a Gibson to that it was night and day and this Gibson is by far the best es335 so if you've got a 2023 es33 5 they've really enhanced the tone of the pickups to the point where it doesn't have that muddy low-end overtone like many prior versions had now not all ES3 35s are bad and this is just coming from a lefty who plays them very infrequently but if I was to buy an es335 right now I would get a Gibson 2023 one it just it had everything not only did it look beautiful it played great the setup was fantastic straight out of the box but also sounded far better than I could have ever imagined so they got the pickups nailed in this one it's really worth checking out up next is the Harley Benton Fusion T 25th anniversary in this killer fire Mist now there's so much to like about this guitar I would consider this the best budget guitar on this list at the time of filming it comes in around $650 Australian doll somewhere around there so you can do the conversion again I'll link it down below and it will convert it for your particular currency but this particular electric has so many good things going for it I mean it has arguably one of the nicest necks I've seen on a guitar at any price point the fire Mist finish looks great we also get some Contours here making it a little bit easier to play up the end of the fretboard speaking of the fretboard we get 22 stainless steel Frets on a budget guitar I think all guitar companies should be doing this in 20204 moving forward because stainless steel Frets never wear out they're so much better we get a set of Roswell pickups which are straight up humbuckers here and they work beautifully we get this uh Wilkinson tremolo as well it comes with a whammy bar and it's just simply a beautiful instrument if you're on a budget and you're looking for a Harley Benson whatever the case may be I can highly recommend this one they do make other models in this particular 25th anniversary series and in the hand this guitar feels like a much more expensive guitar I'm glad to be around in a time where you can get a great guitar without having to break the bank so again this is easily in the best of 2023 to round out the best electric guitars of 2023 I'm going to show you this this is the guitar I've been playing out live more than anything else it ticked all the boxes in terms of functionality and design because actually had a hand in coming up with this particular design through the Kil guitar Builder so this is a Kil sh6 guitar it's been fully customized to my particular specifications which I absolutely freaking love man arguably the best guitar I've played along with a Nick huba and a Mont Leon so it's in very good company the neck on this is so good it's by far the best neck I've ever owned on an electric it's not only quite chunky but has this beautiful flame map look to it or Bird's eyee Maple whatever you call that it just looks absolutely stunning we get the F hole here as well so it's nice and light as well 24 stainless steel Frets easy fret access all the way up and the pickups in this are so musical now I can't remember the model off the top my head but what I'll do I'll put it on screen this can cover your standard humbucker tones or of course you can go Bridge or neck pickup in that split coil or single coil style sound which is fantastic and I mean this is by far my most playable electric guitar and it's not even close every time I pick this up I start smiling you I've been playing my Strat a lot lately with the lce sensor pickups and I love that electric and then every time I get over to this it almost feels too easy which is a good place to be when you've got a great electric guitar it's always good picking up one guitar that's just that little bit easier to play than all of the others and that's this this is absolutely beautiful and it's become my number one electric guitar a huge thanks to the guys from Kel for sending this out you've seen this on countless videos and again I'm under no obligation to play stuff once it hits the the house or whatever the case may be right this has been my favorite electric guitar since it arrived it's absolutely stunning not only looks super cool in my opinion but it's the easiest guitar to play in my entire collection over to the worst guitar products of 2023 now if something that you own is on this list don't take it personally this is just my experience with any piece of gear whether it was faulty or didn't live up to expectations and if it's working for you or you love it that's totally fine the first unfortunate product land on this list is the Fender vibro Champ Reverb amplifier now I purchased this from Sky music here in melin Australia it was a great sounding amplifier I remember plugging in at the shop and just thinking man this sounds great did have a slight rattle in the back and I thought no I could probably live with that it'll be all right so I ended up buying it I took it back home left it in a box for about 2 weeks moved house unboxed it here and over the course of about two weeks the rattle got progressively worse to the point where the amp stopped working the day I went to take it back into the shop to get it exchanged over or whatever I realized that it just there's no sound it was a real big bummer so unfortunately the reliability of these amplifiers might be questionable now if you have one of these and it works you've got yourself arguably Fender's best home small practice amplifier thing sounds beautiful it's got one of the nicest reverbs even though it's a digital Reverb it has this nice plate sort of spacious sound that really just makes the amp come alive I love the tone of it and had it have worked properly it would have landed a spot on my best of 2023 with that question was the best little small amp I've ever played but unfortunately my copy was faulty when I took it back to exchange it the next one also had a severe rattle somewhere with the power tube I didn't want to go through the whole process of taking an amp back getting the tubes replaced getting it back and then it could have the same problem again or something else is wrong so I ended up getting my money back on it which was nice of them to do it but unfortunately I have a hard time recommending this amp just based on the fact it was as unreliable as it was and the one that I was going to replace we've also had very similar problems that could lead to exactly the same issue now I know some tech channels have sort of reviewed the insides of these amps and they sort of find it a little bit questionable but I don't really know too much about that all I know is my hands-on experience and while it's a beautiful sounding amp and one of the best I've ever played for its size unfortunately the reliability just let it down up next is the one spot power supply what if you know the channel you know I'm a huge advocate for this power supply it represents good value for money and generally good performance except for this year I don't know what going on so I ended up putting a second pedal board together I ended up buying a second one spot power supply they're now branded as true tone instead of visual sound which was the older version of the same thing basically the company changed names so this new power supply died within about a week of using it intermittently here at the house I didn't leave it plugged in I used it a handful of times until it just didn't work and I thought man something has to have shorted out somewhere on my pedal board so I'm checking all the connections I then found out it was the power supply so I ended up taking it back was under warranty I got another one the second one buzzed so much more than my original that it wasn't usable so I ended up just sort of biting the bullet in the end thinking I don't want to keep replacing these you know it just sort of sucks for the shop as well and I just thought I'll just take the hit with this so I have a hard time recommending them based on my experience this year but I don't know if this is just a bad batch or an isolated incident or whatever the case may be it could just be a bad batch thing but it's definitely worth mentioning now if you have had a similar experience please comment down in the comment section this will help people know whether or not the quality control has dropped or whether or not this still reliable I have a feeling it could just be a batch issue otherwise I'd probably see more complaints about it in the comment section and so forth but let us know down there and I'll show you what I'm using right now on the last best and the worst of 2023 I showcase this this is the artist pbb1 this is slightly cheaper than the one spot power supply and also it's completely portable being that it's a built-in battery there's less Buzz all that kind of stuff so this is my main power supply now anytime I'm out of the house or if I'm shooting in here in the studio now I still have my Kalin power supply for those wondering I just don't know where some of this stuff is after I moved so I really need to go through some boxes and find all the missing units but basically this has replaced my one- spot power supply and the last item on this list comes from rockboard and I know what we're all thinking what rockboard make great pedal boards 100% I love their pedal boards I own two of them I purchase them I take them out and use them live and you've seen them on the Channel all that kind of stuff so they make exceptional pedal board so no discs against their actual pedal board or bag quality but they make these little extra accessories that are supposed to simplify the entire process little plates that are on the bottom of your pedals that you attach and then they click into the pedal board now these are great if you have a very sparse pedal board but what I found was it didn't actually fit into certain rails on the board meaning that I was actually using up far more space than I would be if I was just using velcro I couldn't get the wire pedal to mount properly on the bottom rail and I'm right footed so I wanted it all the way to the right all the way to the bottom on their larger pedal board and I couldn't get it to fit which was a huge bummer I also have a boss tuner and I found the mounting plate didn't work whatsoever with that either so this was a real Miss in my opinion in terms of extended functionality actually made things way more complicated now if you don't like adding velcro to the bottom of the pedals that's all good and well and these plates will work again if you've got a sort of sparse pedal board but the idea of buying a bigger pedal board is that you can fit more on it usually right so I just didn't find this to be very valuable whatsoever I ended up sending him a nice email saying hey I love the pedal board I love the bag but these just don't fit on the pedals they're supposed to and it ends up you know exactly what I just said ends up taking up more space and I I can't really get behind this kind of thing for a video review so that one nice enough to say hey yep send it back it's all good when I started shooting that video I had four cameras set up it was going to be a full pedal board overview and build video except I couldn't get it to work and I figured if I couldn't get it to work most people probably won't be able to get it to work and I'm sure there's plenty of people who have been able to get it to work so let us know in the comments section what you think of these clips if you did buy it again again the rockboard brand is fantastic and I do have two of their pedal boards here at the house so no complaints again but these clips yeah I don't know if I just got a dud batch or what but unfortunately they just didn't work my least popular videos these days are pedal review videos but I'm going to do a bit of a power round when it comes to effects pedals just to let you know what really stood out in my mind so when it came to the multi effects pedals the Sonic cake matri box gave us excellent tones at excellent value and I would highly recommend this if you're just looking for an inexpensive multi effects pedal it's definitely one of the best that I've tried and all the tone sound as good as anything you know 10 times the price it's crazy just how good it sounds the new ex Trident is the next pedal on this list this is a multi effects processor pedal that's also partly analog so you get the analog controls on the left and then you get all of the you know Banks and features of a multie processor pedal built in but it's very simple to use and it's by far one of the most functional I would have no problems recommending this if you're not a huge fan of menu diving when it came to the analog effects I have to put the warm audio centavo in it I have a feeling even though that this is a straight up replica and clone of a Clon this might be a collector's item in the future I have no way of predicting that other than my guest but these pedals are so good that eventually just knowing the hype around the Clone if they're unavailable down the track you may see these bump up in price and minus the fact it's a little bit big it sounds absolutely like a clone and it looks like a clone get one while you can they're really cool speaking of the Clon style circuit my favorite one that's ended up on my pedal board is the origin effects hian pedal now this is like a Clon but it has so much more including a dry Mix Mod switch and adap switch for more Dynamics and this allows you to get the straight up clone sound with all the too switches to the left or you can completely change it up by moving the Togo switches to the center or to the right you can also bring in your note attack back so you can get a clone sound or something very different this is definitely one of my favorite pedals of the year and it's on my pedal board up next is the Kum Ridge which is by far the most versatile clean boost overdrive and the abortion pedal I've ever had my hands on while keeping the analog Simplicity alive now when I first saw this I thought it was a digital pedal and it does have some digital backend that allows you to connect it to a midi controller and save some presets and all that kind of stuff but it's essentially an analog circuit when it comes to the dirt controls I'm pretty certain on that anyway and this is just one of the most versatile pedals I've had my hands on and if you're looking for an all-in-one that can pretty much replicate everything the Kum Ridge is the way to go this next pedal is one of the best boost pedals I've ever used and it's from a company called Taurus amplification we featured the amp earlier in the video This is called the servo 2 so this has all the same features that are built into that amp but in an effects pedal it's basically like a two channel boost where we can add more boost more harmonics more warmth all this kind of stuff without affecting the tone too much it could be an always on pedal for a lot of players and I saw that in the comments section as well this is a really unique boost pedal it doesn't really make anything nasty it just makes everything sound better so if you're looking for a make it better pedal check out the servo too vs audio one of my favorite pedal Builders out of Greece they make amazing stuff and my pedal board has a few of their pedals on there we're going to talk about the VSS audio Platinum which is essentially a silver jubilee amplifier in a box which is very different to the jcm thing and this does this SRV style tone beautifully man it once you sort of turn the gain down a bit and turn the volume up you can get some beautiful bluy off clean tones which are some of the best I've seen and heard from any pedal the shift line stages is a unique pedal with killer tones and this has three different gain stages that's why they call it the stages you can basically customize your sound to no end whether you want a light or overdrive or Distortion tone whether you want it more scooped or more mid presentes you can get all of that out of this pedal it's small and Compact and in many ways it's very much like the Kum Ridge except much smaller and it's well worth it if you're looking for a great blues rock sound going into those sort of heavier kind of tones you can get so much out of this really is an allinone one of the most impressive pedals of 2023 and I have the larger version version back there right now and I use it on a lot of my videos is the crazy tube circuit sidekick junor this is a delay Reverb and modulation in one now a lot of the reviews just showcase the classic sort of 80 sound which is what it can definitely do but it can do so much more than that irrespective of your style of playing so if you have an amp that doesn't have Reverb and you're looking for Reverb and delay pedal this would be a no-brainer because it gives you all of the great tones with very little noise it's very simple to operate if you're a fan of playing Blues check out the Ravenstone Apollo version too this is one of the best blues overdrive pedals I've tried in the last 12 months that gives you those dumble esque tones now some pedals claim to do the dumble sound but all they do is roll out your top end this one actually feels so good to play while I don't own a dumble obviously you can get so many great tones out of this pedal and if you're a blues player it's super Dynamic it's got that Steely overtone it really is a great pick and lastly I'm going to put the crazy tube circuits high power high watt and boost pedal on this list now I only reviewed this a few weeks before actually filming this video and it's by far one of the best pedals of 2023 because it's Unique it doesn't sound really like anything else it's got the highw sort of style crunch tones built into it so it's amp in a box style tone but you can use your volume control and get it to clean up beautifully and it has a dedicated boost circuit as well so you can use one or the other or both at the same time and make it work you know sometimes these amp in a box pedals people kind of gloss their eyes over and cuz it's just another pedal like that but think of it more like a really usable overdrive through to a distortion tone and then a boost pedal if you look at it like that you go oh okay this might work so you can dial it in however you like but the voicing is very reminiscent of those classic highw amps except you get a boost circuit that works beautifully in combination and that wraps up the best and the worst music products of 2023 so let us know what you think of this list I know it was quite extensive this year it might be slightly longer than last year's video I'm not sure yet I've got only half of it in editing as of talking right now I sort of do this in sections because it takes takes so freaking long but I hope you've enjoyed this video I'm just thankful I keep a lot of my old videos on my hard drive all the b-roll and shots the products all that kind of stuff makes doing this a whole lot easier so thank you everyone for the support and massive thanks to the patreon crew for all the support over the years I really appreciate it if you want to learn about that I'll link it down below and thank you to all the channel members subscribers everyone who just supports by leaving a thumbs up all that stuff really really helped so thank you again don't forget also please check your notification Bell make sure it's set to all if if you're interested in what I do or you can have it personalized whatever the case may be but at least then you got some hope of seeing what I do in the mix of all the other stuff flying around this particular Niche on YouTube but thanks again hopefully 2024 will be another big year for the channel thanks for watching my name is Shane and I will catch you soon see you

Channel: intheblues

Views: 98,970

Keywords: intheblues, best review, best of 2023, best guitars of 2023, intheblues end of year wrap up

Id: gj8YRrhU-Ok

Length: 48min 43sec (2923 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023