Category: news

Höfner Galaxie Bass Retro Vibes, Smooth Play

If you’re into vintage-looking gear with a unique sound, the Höfner Galaxie Bass might just be your next favorite find. It’s not your average bass—this one’s got serious 60s style, a comfy feel, and a tone that’s perfect for indie, blues, or anything with a retro edge.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Galaxie is the look. That offset body shape, old-school slider switches, and classic finishes scream vintage cool. It kind of feels like the bass your dad played in a garage band, in the best way possible. It’s lighter than most modern basses, and the short scale neck makes it super easy to play—especially if you’re more of a guitarist jumping into bass or just prefer something more compact.

Plug it in, and you’ll hear why this bass has such a cult following. It got A punchy, mid-focused tone with warm low-end (though not super deep) yet also has clear highs that still feel smooth. It’s great for stuff like indie rock, classic blues, garage, or even lo-fi recordings. The single-coil pickups give it some bite, but it’s not overly aggressive. It sits really well in a mix and adds that vintage flavor to your track or live set.

It’s not made for modern metal or slap bass—but that’s not what it’s trying to be.

This bass is super fun to play. The 30” scale makes it feel more like a guitar than a full-sized bass, so the frets are easier to reach and fast to move around. Perfect for bass players who want something smooth and simple—or guitarists who want to dabble in bass without the stretch.

You may love it because it looks amazing (seriously, it turns heads), Lightweight and comfortable feels and Easy to play. Its short scale is beginner-friendly and has unique tone that’s full of character. What you might need to consider is that this bass is not super versatile for modern genres since it has fewer tone-shaping options than active basses. and it might be hard to find brand new.

But overall if you’re looking for something different—something that looks cool, plays great, and has a tone that stands out—the Höfner Galaxie Bass is a solid pick. It’s got all the vintage charm without the vintage price (if you can find one), and it’s just a fun instrument to have in your collection. here’s my checksound video:

Drop a comment below and let me know what you think. And if you want more gear reviews, tone tips, or playing ideas, hit that subscribe button or check out my other content!

July 7, 2025
It Might Get Loud (2008)

What does inspire me beside guitar playing and songs? Of course it’s movies. This movies is just one of many of them.

“It Might Get Loud” (2008) is a documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim that explores the personal and musical journeys of three legendary guitarists from different generations and genres:

Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) – representing classic rock and blues-based hard rock.

Graham Wiltshire/Redferns/Getty Images

The Edge (U2) – known for his innovative use of effects and ambient soundscapes.

Rmv/Shutterstock

Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) – rooted in raw blues, garage rock, and DIY ethos.

The film brings the three guitarists together in one room to talk, jam, and share stories about how they discovered the guitar, their influences, songwriting processes, and unique playing styles. It blends interviews, archival footage, and intimate solo segments where each musician reflects on their early days, iconic riffs, and philosophies on music. The film culminates in a jam session where the trio plays together, notably performing songs like “The Weight” by The Band.

check my complete list on Benable Musical movies inspire me so much

This movies has complete good stuff from their Personal connections to the guitar those guided them to he evolution of tone and technique couses Contrasts between their style and approach plus the emotional power and cultural impact of the electric guitar. It’s reflective, passionate, and inspiring for musicians and music lovers alike.Though they come from different eras and sounds, Page, The Edge, and White share a deep emotional connection to the guitar. “It Might Get Loud” celebrates the instrument’s ability to express identity, rebellion, and soul. You would not regretted it.

July 1, 2025
PRS SE made in Indonesia, is it worth the name Paul Reed Smith guitar?

PRS SE Custom 24, yes, before we talk about my , let’s check this stuff. This kind of questions happen all the time since USA guitars built their lineups overseas. People tend to underestimate the built quality of factories in developing countries because of poor quality control and cheap parts, even the risk of being stolen and sold illegally which would cost a big loss for company brand and products.

First doubt went to Japanese guitars compared to US made, but Japan guitars fought back with even better qualities. years after that, the doubt went move to china, Korea and Indonesia. There are so many minor details which showed that the overseas productions is just crap with muddy pickups, unfinished neck and poor fret crowning etc. and people started to think that it’s just blind brand developments with profit oriented only.

BUT, I think Paul Reed Smith guitars made a big difference here. I just got one of its series, the PRS SE custom 24 guitar Amber Fade limited edition and it’s just like Paul said:

“It looks good, it plays good, and it sounds good”

i thought it was a overly bold statement but now i get it

PRS SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade has nice finish, the glossy one, great color. The knobs work smooth and fine (although it’s too slippery for me 😀 ) the bridge, saddles and nut are great, it is set for the 0.09 – 0.46 strings gauge so it plays like butter, great precision and craftsmanship

i made the sound check:

PRS SE Custom 24 Amber Fade Ltd Edition

and it sounds great!

one positive thing after another is, the PRS SE keep their high standards since their Korean made… i fell the same vibes with the early PRS SE model made in korea

Paul Reed Smith SE custom 22 semi hollow

Paul Reed Smith SE Mark Tremonti series

and definitely it pushes away my thoughts in doubting the “made in Indonesia” guitars. this guitar is worth to collect.

Paul Reed Smith SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade

Paul Reed Smith SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade

PRS SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade

Paul Reed Smith SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade

PRS SE Ltd Edition Custom 24 Amber Fade

May 28, 2021
Pocket Guitar Aeroband, A New Way To Be A Musician
I have something interesting to show to everyone. Usually I talk about tone woods or guitar wiring schematics, but this time is special. It’s a musical gadget integrated to our cellphones through apps. yes, it’s pretty much involving nowadays technology and it’s fun. it’s Pocket Guitar Aeroband.

Pocket Guitar Aeroband

Pocket guitar aeroband shape is similar to Guitar plectrum / guitar picks and that’s exactly how to use it. we will be doing air guitar show! just strum it after connect it to phone and the sound of clear and nice folk acoustic guitar will come out throughout the phone speakers.

Aeroband Pocket guitar

well, okay i’m just too rushing it because I’m so excited. First download the Aeroband app on phone Apps store, install and open it.

Aeroband App

Pocket Guitar uses bluetooth as the way it connects to phone, so make sure the bluetooth devices is turned on

make sure to activate GPS on the phone too. This gadget seems like use Accelerometer and gryroscope system to detect the hand strumming, so let’s do that.

i made lots of pic to help my explanation so here they are:

connect Pocketguitar Aeroband

click go and we have this on the screen:

aeroband pocket guitar

choose pocket guitar and we’re good to go

playing Aeroband pocket guitar

so far so good, I did the unboxing video of this gadget and it was fun.

and the check sound video. I was really excited by this.. tried on my cellphone and played it through the amp. it sounds just like good guitar with good wood body:

so far i like this product. it sounds good and it came in great and secured package so I didn’t worry about any damages by delivery. DHL delivered right to my front door and i have no worries at all about DHL services, they are good.

Few things about this gadget before i click publish, is somehow this pioneer product is developing and evolving. I might had few small difficulties in connecting it to phone, like :
i need an hour to understand that this thing needs the GPS to be ON

the gravity affects the gyroscope-things so i had to adjust my strumming faced toward earth so i can get equal power of strumming movements between upstroke and downstrokes

the firmware upgrade made it more sensitive to strumming, i like it before the firmware upgrade and i don’t know how to revert it
BUT i have faith this will get better because one thing. NOthing beats the excitement of doing Air Guitar ! and this Aeroband pocket guitar, it just has that fun. so, i think this stuff worth to get our attentions. So please check https://aeroband.net/ to get more information and you may make an order,FYI: there’s pocket drums too.

see ya guys!
August 26, 2020
Fly Rig 5 BRIT guitar effects pedal by Tech 21

Here comes the BRIT version of the Fly Rig 5 by Tech21. It comes in violet theme, bright knobs and amazing sound. It has the simplicity design like the Flyrig 5 first version, but surely this BRIT has more of something than the first flyrig5 has.

Tech 21 FlyRig 5–BRIT

The Design

Looks cool isn’t it? for me the design is by so far the most catchy color, Still with the simple one input and one output, which sometimes we want more features on this pedal. yes, that urge to mix and match the pedals in order tor redefine our tones. it was answered by the last post anyway, about thee fly rig 5 version 2.

The Sound

what about the sound? yes.. by far it is amazing, Flyrig 5 Brit sounds like the plexi one, but with more rich gain. It is more versatile because with more gain, we have wider range of music genre, and Flyrig 5 brit sounds just great on clean setting. i made the shootout on youtube, here it is:

Tech21 FlyRig 5 – BRIT on youtube

so by far this is my favorite between all of the first version of fly rig 5. FYI for this Fly Rig stuff, i recorded them all directly through to mixer without any cabinet simulator whatsoever. just using DIbox to get stabilized signal only. The result was amazing. i can go to anywhere gig with this pedal, and since it’s soo small, i can carry it without any second thought. just put it into my guitar gigbag and we’re good to go. I can share no words more than these, let’s the sound speaks up by it self.

Fly Rig 5 BRIT by tech21

the latest fly rig is FLy Rig 5 V 2 , also check it out – go to post

August 13, 2020
Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver, for us or for Joe?

hello everyone and I’m sorry. I’ve been fooling around for last 3 years and this year, i am making my comeback to this blog. I hope this time topic will bring back the writing fun in me. haha

lately I made a small business by trading my stuff, to get new gears and new stuff for my videos on my youtube channel, and that activity brought me to meet the Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver guitar. a made in japan guitar by Team J. Craft, surely it’s not a joke. check this crazy specs:

specification of Ibanez JS1600

Ibanez JS1600
Made in: Japan by Team J. Craft
Finishes: PSV (Premium Silver)

Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver guitar

Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver guitar back side

Body
Body material : Mahogany
Neck joint : Tilt Joint
Bridge : Gotoh GTC101 bridge
Hardware color : Chrome

Ibanez JS1600 PSV body guitar

Ibanez JS1600 PSV body guitar back

Neck
Neck type : JS Prestige
Material : 1-Piece Maple
Fingerboard : Rosewood
Inlays : Abalone Dots
Frets : 22 /6105

Ibanez JS1600 PSV headstock guitar

Ibanez JS1600 PSV tuning machine guitar

Electronics
PU Config : HH
Neck PU : DiMarzio PAF Pro
Bridge PU : DiMarzio FRED
Controls : 1 Volume (with High-Pass filter)
1 Tone (with coil tap) / 3-Way Toggle

Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver guitar complete

Neck dimensions
Scale length : 648mm/25.5″
Radius : 250mm

and it came with great hardcase, beautiful neck plate and joe satriani and steve vai signature. FYI it was preloved guitar. the previous owner had a chance to bring it with him and got it signatured by joe satriani and steve vai.. what a lucky man

Ibanez JS1600 hardcase guitar

Ibanez JS1600 neckplate guitar

Ibanez JS1600 joe satriani signature

that’s almost all about the guitar details.. wonderful isn’t it?

main problem

now, for my real topic here. Ibanez JS1600 guitar has fixed bridge! for a two thousands five hundreds dollars guitar which is a Joe Satriani signature, don’t we think it is overpriced? no whammy bar? come on, besides this is professor satchafunkilus we’re talking about. even mr. Satch himself using whammy bar mostly on his performances.

that’s what i thought first when i saw the ads of this Ibanez JS1600 PSV Premium silver guitar . but when i plug it on my small amp, i know this one is no joke. As a result, it’s a beast machine waiting to be unleashed on big stages. the neck feels great and the strings are stay in tunes forever. furthermore, what make it best is the volume pot knob! it responses like any other guitar I’ve tried so far.. it’s so easy to dial to get exact amount of volume and gain we want to, even the tone knob does great job, too. certainly i made a sample sound on my youtube channel:

after checking the video i hope you understand what i’m talking about, most importantly, this guitar feels like a kind of joe satriani’s understanding point of view as non whammy bar user guitarists. so it is like more for us, or for satriani’s fans who love his playing and wants to discover their own playing styles such as a non whammy bar guitarists (like me 😀 i’d love to learn though).

Conclusion

so, the conclusion is, this guitar is worth to be collected whether as our private collection or as our main axe on our gigs. i hope you like my review. i know this kind of writing is old ones, you know, nowadays people goes to Instagram and making judgement by one picture or one minute videos and short captions, but i stick on this. having my own site and writing honest reviews. therefore it’s more me.

one thing i feel need to say is, please subscribe to my youtube channel guitar learner. it is synchronized with the stuff i write here so i guess it is still correlated as “old but gold” way of learning. I’d really appreciate that if you do. thanks, see you next posts

February 13, 2019
Guitar Authenticity Check
Guitar Authenticity Check is a must-to-do thing when we buy a guitar, whether it’s new or pre-owned one. Why? because counterfeit is one thing nobody likes it, include us, guitarists. Unfortunately, this issue has been among us in decades, and it’s really important for us to take serious measurements about this.

personally, and professionally(!), I don’t hate customized guitar by luthiers, I kinda like the way they set their own standards on how a guitar is supposed to be. But I really hate if my friends (or even myself) found out that they paid TOO MUCH for fake guitar.. and one more thing, there’s almost nothing i can do about this counterfeit issue.

BUT, i think i can help a little by sharing my notes about Guitar Authenticity Check. Recently I helped my friend buying a guitar and the result was quite great. It’s Epiphone Les Paul 100 guitar, cherry sunburst with pickguard, very lovely.

I knew (as everyone else does) that Epiphone is one of leading brand in guitars, and for couple times i found epiphone parts such like backplates were sold separately, yes, it has counterfeit-risks.

so I’ve checked all detailed parts and found out few details which might very useful for us. Here’s the pic:

although there’s no serial numbers carved or printed on headstocks and neck, I found it labeled under the bridge pickups, yup, there you have it. I’ve checked the serial number on epiphone serial number decoder at guitardaterproject.org and this guitar is made in Indonesia on november 2010 by Samick Factory. quite nice info right? also i found out “Epiphone” brand carved/molded on stop bridge, tune-o-matic bridge, below pickups, even on mono jack socket. well done, Epiphone.

based on those, I made some notes, at least for my own standards, when i want to buy a guitar

Guitar Authenticity Check points
- Get the guitar images and other info from its official website. there we will get its specs, and the closest guitar model looks
- Get the sound samples from videos/youtube reviews. we can also get the guitar physical appearances there
- compare it directly by try the guitar first before we decide ANYTHING. nothing beats the real sound and the playability/actions when you need to decide whether buying it or not
- bring your friend who is also a guitarist to get more proper considerations
- always choose trusted seller, if it’s not possible, ask the seller to provide the guitar authenticity info and proof. remember, it is you who hold the money, keep that in mind always
those words above just might be not enough, but i think those could be useful as basic considerations. good luck and have fun playing guitar! 🙂
March 7, 2016