Good guitar magazines?

[Mor Paul]

What are some good magazines for someone who likes guitars?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I look at them at the grocery store from time to time and I'm not that impressed.  Most are sealed and come from some sort of CD/DVD now, so a lot of times you can't even "try before you buy."  Most are full of tabs that I don't care for and the rest is shiny, glossy adds or a product review that is nothing short of a paid advertisement.  I'm more interested in in depth product reviews or in depth interviews.  Occasionally there will be something like that in a Guitar World or Guitar, but those a few and far between.  The buyer's guide used to be halfway useful too.

The best one I've ever seen was an English mag I got at Barnes and Noble about eight years ago.  You wouldn't have even known it was English except for an occasional differently spelled (some say correctly spelled) word, and the prices were in pounds.  The PRS Singlecut had just come out, and it had an article on that that ended up being more about Gibson, Ted McCarty, and Seth Lover.  There was another article about tubes.  The differences and different manufacturers.  There aren't as many as you think.  It was only released about every 2 to 3 months, and I haven't seen it since.   

 

[tfcreative]

I've seen several issues of Premier Guitar that I liked. Some of the regular columns are about touring rigs, effect building, speaker construction, and the like. Pretty heavy on the ads, but the articles I've seen have been good.

 

[mayfly]

I only read two:

Vintage Guitar

and

Fretboard Journal.

The latter is EXCELLENT!  IMHO of course, and YMMV.

 

[stratplayer1]

Guitar world is the only one i've ever really looked over, its not really good for like do it yourself things nothing like that in there, just stuff on new products, artists, its an ok mag i supose

 

[kreig]

I stay away from the one's that put sleazy looking sluts in bed with guitars, if I want to look at that stuff, they have mags for that too!

In the 80's I wrote to the Editor of Guitar Player about this very thing, and in 2 months, all the ads with chicks disappeared, and Phil Keaggy
was on the cover. I don't know how long that lasted, but I felt I made a positive impact. :hello2:

It was totally out of control.

Hey, I just noticed this post is my 500th, which makes me a Hero Member. Do I get a big "W" to put on my chest?

:hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2:

 

[Mor Paul]

My aunt normally gets me a magazine subscription a year as a gift, so I'm just looking at the different ones.

Fretboard Journal
Vintage Guitar
Premier Guitar

 

[stratplayer1]

a little off topic is that a new pic kreig? sweet ass goatee/beard

 

[kreig]

a little off topic is that a new pic kreig? sweet ass goatee/beard

Yes

 

[kykah]

"Guitar Techniques"

 

[Nick Ellingworth]

The best one I've ever seen was an English mag I got at Barnes and Noble about eight years ago.  You wouldn't have even known it was English except for an occasional differently spelled (some say correctly spelled) word, and the prices were in pounds.  The PRS Singlecut had just come out, and it had an article on that that ended up being more about Gibson, Ted McCarty, and Seth Lover.  There was another article about tubes.  The differences and different manufacturers.  There aren't as many as you think.  It was only released about every 2 to 3 months, and I haven't seen it since.

I suspect that would either be what was then known as Guitar Magazine (now Guitar and Bass) or Guitarist. The latter I read fairly regularly as it does provide in depth reviews, interviews, intelligent columnists and rather than useless tabs focusses more on how to play in a certain style. Guitar and Bass used to be ok but it's gone down hill in recent years. Still it's far better than Total Guitar which might as well be renamed Emo/sold out metal bands Guitar given what it's content is.

 

[stubhead]

Guitar World is geared somewhat towards metal heads, lots of Randy Rhoads & Dimebag Darrell retrospectives, and trashy girls with inch-long fingernails holding weird ugly guitars... they also revere Vai & Satriani, but I still let my last subscription expire. :toothy12: I can't stop reading Guitar Player magazine after all these years, though their reviews might as well have been written by the manufacturers - one review of a $3,000 tube amp saying "you can never match real tube tone" and the next page a review of a $99 modeler sayings "it sounds exactly like a tube amp!" Hey, the modeler manufacturers can afford bigger ads.... Guitar Player does have the best instructional columns with musical examples.

I also get Premier Guitar, it's written for adults with none of the gee-whiz-kids writing style. What I like best about Premier is that they often profile ordinary, working studio and touring guitarists, people on a budget who may have better equipment suggestions for me than say, Santana or Clapton... not so many Hendrix retrospective either. :toothy12: :toothy12: I like Vintage Guitar too, but it's BIG - like Rolling Stone size, I never know where to put the thing... they go way deep into which screwhead type were on the 54's vs. the 55's, not my field of interest - I'll probably let this one die too. :toothy12: :toothy12: :toothy12:

So: Guitar Player for the columns, Premier Guitar for the articles. And Guitar World for the cheap trashy gurrlz...

 

[GoDrex]

Guitar Player is about as deep as I can stand to go. They interview a pretty good range of players so I enjoy it for that mainly. I've learned a bit from it over the years.

 

[nathan a]

I like Guitar Player because they often have short articles about really great folk/world music guitarists that I haven't heard of before, and so I can sometimes discover new musical flames.