Guitar

Players looking to tap into the sweet sounds of a vintage AC30 amplifier while out and about might plug into an amPlug headphone amp and rock out. But now there's another option, with three Vox headphone variants that have guitar amps cooked in.

Fender is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and is marking the occasion with special editions of its most popular models – the Telecaster, Stratocaster, Precision Bass and Jazz Bass.

This extraordinary hundred-buck headphone amp plugs straight into your electric guitar, giving you access to a dozen beautifully-made amp emulators and a swag of quality effects in about the most portable package we can imagine.

UK guitar amp maker Blackstar has introduced its first guitar in collaboration with Gordon Smith Guitars. The Carry-On Guitar is aimed at wanderlust musicians who want the feel and tone of a full-size instrument in a compact package.

Fender mashed up different guitar models for its Parallel Universe series in 2018. The company launched the second edition in July, and has now released its fifth member – a gorgeous black and gold bruiser called the Troublemaker Tele Deluxe Bigsby.

Music gear icon Gibson has teamed up with online instrument marketplace titan Reverb to sell one-of-a-kind prototypes, demo models, pre-played artist signatures and Gibson mods. The Gibson Demo Shop has kicked off with 40 exclusive guitars.

Eric Clapton often auctions off his music gear to help fund the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, and it's from the first in mid-1999 that Lot 103 was sold. Dubbed Slowhand, it's now available again, with bidding kicking off at a million bucks.

Back in 2016, Chris Prendergast launched a Kickstarter project for the JamStack portable guitar amplifier that snapped onto a strap peg and blasted out tones generated by a smartphone. Now the bigger and better second generation has launched.

Every so often we stumble across something truly awesome on platforms like YouTube. In this case it was a beautiful rendition of the George Harrison composition, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, on a custom acoustic with a novel slide guitar attachment.

Last year, Yamaha's range of excellent desktop modeling amps went wireless thanks to a built-in Line 6 receiver. Now the company has launched a new model called the THR-30IIA Wireless that's dedicated to acoustic players.

PopuBand Music launched a learning ukulele on Indiegogo in 2017 that had students follow lights on the neck to master popular tunes. Now the company is crowdfunding an LED-packing acoustic guitar and app learning system called the Poputar.

Taylor has introduced a new acoustic body shape with the launch of the Grand Theater model, with the body dimensions and scale length coming somewhere between the compact GS Mini and the full-size Grand Concert.