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Read how Exhumed, Gruesome, Impaled and KMFDM members payed homage to their young by helping bring the fictional Cobra-backed metal band Cold Slither to life.
The post How G.I. Joe-Stanning Supergroup COLD SLITHER Plan to Rule the World appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

PG contributor Tom Butwin jumps into the Magnatone Baby M‑80 Slash Edition—12 watts of tube tone with clean sparkle, crunch, and high‑gain roar. With a master volume, Hi/Lo gain switch, effects loop, and backlit Slash logo, this amp brings full British flavor in a tiny frame. Whether you’re tracking at home or rocking live, it’s a compact beast you need to hear.MagnatoneBaby M-80SLASH SIGNATURE COLLECTIONPortable British-Style Warmth and Drive, Wrapped in Striking Purple Python. Available in a Head/Cab or a Combo.Elevate your rig with the Baby M-80 “Purple Python” edition—where boutique tone meets bold style. Wrapped in hand-selected black and deep-purple snakeskin tolex with deluxe gold piping and hardware, this amp also features a gold-anodized faceplate with Slash’s “Skully” logo. This ultra-portable 12-watt powerhouse delivers the same legendary British crunch and creamy overdrive that Slash calls “the most kick-ass little combo I’ve ever played through.”Beneath its striking exterior, the Baby M-80 is built around NOS 6AQ5 pentode power tubes that deliver 12 watts of warm, responsive output. The 12AX7 preamp section offers two gain settings, allowing you to move from clear, articulate cleans to gently saturated overdrive with the simple flip of a switch. A master volume knob ensures that the amp’s natural character remains intact whether you’re practicing at home or setting up for a small club gig. An effects loop sits between the preamp and power sections, preserving signal integrity when you introduce pedals or rack-mounted processors into your rig.Each “Purple Python” Baby M-80 ships with a premium package of stickers and guitar picks. Handmade in our St. Louis workshop and crafted for tour-ready performance, it’s the perfect compact companion for studio, stage, or home. Designed under the guidance of engineer Obeid Khan, the Baby M-80 “Purple Python” series is offered as a combo, or a head with a matching 1×10″ extension cabinet loaded with a WGS ET 10 Speaker. For guitarists seeking an amp that balances portability, versatility, and a refined visual statement, the Purple Python Baby M-80 represents a thoughtful blend of form and function.

PG contributor Tom Butwin jumps into the Magnatone Baby M‑80 Slash Edition—12 watts of tube tone with clean sparkle, crunch, and high‑gain roar. With a master volume, Hi/Lo gain switch, effects loop, and backlit Slash logo, this amp brings full British flavor in a tiny frame. Whether you’re tracking at home or rocking live, it’s a compact beast you need to hear.

Previously a limited run, this new signature model will be a constantPRS Guitars today announced the return of a Mark Holcomb six-string signature guitar to the Core Series, 10 years after the original. Offered in 2015 as a limited release only, this new version will be a regular part of the Maryland lineup. Mark Holcomb, renowned for his groundbreaking work with progressive metal band Periphery, brings his signature style and precision to an updated guitar built for versatility and power. The Mark Holcomb model features a mango top, a 25.5” scale length maple neck, and an ebony fretboard with a 20” radius—crafted for speed and precision. Equipped with Holcomb’s signature Seymour Duncan Scarlet and Scourge pickups, this guitar delivers focused low-end punch and crystal-clear articulation, ensuring complex chord voicings, coil-splitting, and drop tunings remain defined and dynamic. The 5-way blade switch unlocks a range of tones, from dual humbuckers in position three, to coil-split options in positions two and four.“This new Core model is a culmination of all of the touring, recording, and writing I’ve done for the last 11 years with PRS and is a product of all the iterations PRS and I have done over that time. This guitar surpasses all of what we’ve established and is my new gold standard for tone and playability. Seeing it come to fruition is nothing short of a dream fulfilled. I couldn’t be more proud of it, and I’m supremely grateful to PRS for their innovation and dedication to perfection,” said Mark Holcomb.The model comes set up with PRS Signature 10-52 strings in Drop C tuning. It is appointed with satin black hardware and available in Charcoal Wraparound Burst, Holcomb Wraparound Burst, Holcomb Blue Wraparound Burst, Cobalt Smokeburst, Fire Smokeburst, Gray Black, and Purple Mist Wraparound Burst.Holcomb’s innovative riffing, a cornerstone of Periphery’s dense triple-guitar sound, comes to life on stages worldwide with his PRS signature models. After the initial collaboration on a limited release of Holcomb signature Core models, Mark worked with PRS to create the SE Holcomb and the seven-string SE Holcomb SVN. PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year. For all of the latest news, click www.prsguitars.com/40 and follow @prsguitars on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, X, and YouTube.

Denver weirdo beatdown band Aleister Cowboy are back with their third EP, Neolithic Blood Rites, out August 22 You can hear the debut track from the EP, “Liquefied Bodies Scarped From a Tub,” with us first.
The post Track Premiere: Aleister Cowboy – “Liquefied Bodies Scraped From A Tub” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Hello, and welcome back to Mod Garage. You asked for it, and Mod Garage delivers. Today, we will start a new little series and play “custom shop on a budget” together. We’ll talk about what is really important for the amplified tone of an electric guitar and prove all of this on the living object. We’re going to take apart a budget electric guitar down to the last screw, and we’ll see what’s possible to make it an excellent sounding guitar, step by step. I encourage you to follow along by getting yourself a similar electric and working in parallel to the column. For this first installment, let’s have a closer look at the never-dying, snake-oil-drenched urban legends about tonewood on electric guitars and establish some parameters for our experiment. It’s very important to understand that we are talking about tonewood on electric guitars and their amplified tone exclusively; tonewood on acoustic guitars is a completely different thing. The rules for electric guitars are not applicable to acoustic guitars, and vice versa. In general, the whole discussion about tonewood is full of misunderstandings, inaccuracies, conclusions by analogy, biasing, and, of course, marketing bullshit of all kinds. And, sadly, a lot of this has developed into accepted internet knowledge by way of unfounded rumors.Is the wood of an electric guitar the deciding factor of how it will sound? Or does the wood have no influence on its tone? I submit a resolute “no” to both theses: The truth here is much more complex, and, as usual, lies somewhere in between these two points. So, let’s try to find out exactly where that is!There is no plant genus or tree called tonewood on this planet. That’s simply a word that’s intended to describe woods used to build instruments of any kind. In the context of stringed instruments, tonewood usually denotes woods that are traditionally used to build guitars. In the case of electric guitars, woods like alder, ash, maple, rosewood, and mahogany fall into this category, most of which have been used since the earliest days of electric guitar building. Let’s take alder and maple, for example. There are more than 40 alder and no less than 150 maple subspecies. Are they all tonewoods or only some of them? If it’s only some, which ones count? Did Leo Fender define what alder, ash, and maple subspecies get ennobled to tonewood? Let’s take a short journey back in time and see what Leo Fender cooked up in the early ’50s at 107 S. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton, California.For his first electric guitars, Leo Fender used pine for the body (is pine a tonewood as well?) and maple for the neck. He soon switched to ash for the body, but stayed with maple for the neck. Why did Leo Fender choose these woods? Certainly not because of any tonal qualities. Ash and maple are lightweight, strong, easy to work with, and they were available in large quantities for a cheap price at the time. They were the perfect selections for Leo’s mass-production plans. Gibson decided to go with mahogany and maple, but for different reasons that also had little to do with tonal qualities. What exact types of maple, ash, and mahogany were used by Fender and Gibson? Well, nobody knows exactly, and the most likely answer would be: whatever was available cheap and in large quantities. It’s likely that even their wood suppliers didn’t know exactly what subtype they were offering! These woods were probably chosen because of structural, optical, and economic reasons, yet they laid the foundation of the tonewood legend in electric guitars.Interestingly, our bass-playing colleagues seem not to be caught in such paradigms, and all kinds of woods are used to build fantastic sounding electric basses today without the tonewood debate. Try to build a great-sounding electric guitar using cherry, pear, chestnut, oak, or birch; I’d venture that most people will tell you that it doesn’t sound right because it’s not made out of tonewood. Now that we’ve established what tonewood is, let’s talk about the actual tone of these woods. Here’s a common comparison of ash and alder: In general, ash tends to produce a brighter, more articulate tone with good sustain, while alder is known for its warmer, thicker midrange sound. Ash, especially swamp ash, is often described as having a sweet, open top-end with a slightly scooped midrange. Alder, on the other hand, is perceived as having more pronounced mids and a potentially less defined low end. Sound familiar?Here again, we have the problem of missing definitions and inaccuracies: Does this mean all kinds of ash and alder sound the same, no matter what subspecies they are? Is there a kind of general ash or alder tone? Assuming we’re talking about electric guitars, what tone are we discussing—the primary tone when strumming an unamplified electric or the amplified tone? Tonal descriptions are usually missing this important information.“The correct question should be: How much of these tonal differences will be audible in the electrified tone of an electric guitar? Is the amplified tone simply a 1:1 copy of the primary acoustic tone?”I think we can all agree that using different woods and hardware has an influence on the primary tone of a guitar, no matter if it’s an acoustic or an electric guitar. A cedar soundboard will create a much different tone than spruce or mahogany on an acoustic guitar, and an alder body on a Strat will sound different than ash, maple, or mahogany when playing it unamplified—not to mention the tonal impacts of different types of hardware on the guitar. So, the correct question should be: How much of these tonal differences will be audible in the electrified tone of an electric guitar? Is the amplified tone simply a 1:1 copy of the primary acoustic tone? Well, let’s try to find out.A common scenario you can observe in guitar shops and on countless YouTube videos is the mandatory “dry test” when checking out a new electric guitar. The electric guitar is played like an acoustic guitar without being plugged into an amp. You can hear a lot of different answers for why such a test is important: You can feel how the wood resonates, what sustain it has, what overall tone it has, how much high-end chime is present, what the attack is like, etc.Interestingly, all too often, criteria like playability and comfortability, defining how the guitar individually suits you, are omitted. How does the shape of the neck, the size of the frets, and the edge of the fretboard feel? How does the shape of the guitar fit your body when seated and standing? How does it intonate, how is the action, and how heavy is it? All of these factors determine to what degree the guitar will be a part of you, just like buying new jeans. But what about the countless claims that the elements you hear in the dry test will be heard through the amp, too? Are these overly simplistic conclusions reached by analogy mixed with confirmation bias—an all-too-human reasoning process? Well, we’ll see.You will have noticed that I haven’t made a single judgement until now; I’m just collecting facts and asking questions, and I encourage you to think and research about all of these things yourself until next month.That’s when we will continue and finish our journey through the fantastic world of tonewoods for electric guitars, so stay tuned!Until then … keep on modding!

Wrap your ears around an advance listen of new material from Deaf Club!
The post Track Premiere: Wading Through the Shit With Deaf Club’s “Crap Circles” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

OC Pedal Co. has released the company’s second pedal, the LA HABRA Hard Clipper. This distortion captures some of the classic 80’s and 90’s drive tones we know and love. The LA HABRA Hard Clipper is heavy, but still organic in its touch response, it’s kind of like fuzz for people who don’t like fuzz! The pedal’s interface is simple, it features a master volume, tone knob and a gain toggle switch allowing players to change the character of the clipping. The gain level is fixed! This unit shines through clean pedal platform type amps.Key pedal features include:80’s/90’s distortion tonesStacks well with overdrivesTwo clipping profiles to change the character of the distortionTrue bypass on/off switch9-volt operation via standard external DC input (no battery compartment)Top-mounted input/output/DC jacks for easy pedalboard installationDesigned and assembled in USAThe OC Pedal Co. LA HABRA Hard Clipper carries a street price of $179 and is available direct to consumer at www.ocpedalco.com