The Progress Award: Taylor Guitars

An outdated (and probably apocryphal) Greek proverb says that, ‘a society grows nice when outdated males plant bushes in whose shade they’ll by no means sit’. Whereas we’d by no means accuse Taylor’s founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug of being outdated males (as new CEO Andy Powers advised us of the model’s management trio, “We’re all current and accounted for!”) there’s little doubt that the pair, and the corporate they’ve constructed, has completed greater than another main guitar model in guaranteeing that folks will have the ability to make inspiring musical devices out of fantastic tonewoods lengthy after they’re gone.

From the corporate’s trailblazing Ebony Venture in Cameroon to its modern cultivation and harvesting of koa in Hawaii, Taylor has been main the way in which in how guitar manufacturers take into consideration the uncooked supplies they eat and the methods during which they’ll scale back their environmental impression for a few years now, however 2022 noticed them take issues to a different stage.
In 2022, Taylor launched the 700 Sequence Koa, a complete overhaul of the model’s flagship vary that noticed Powers reengineer the corporate’s hallmark physique designs to utilize select-grade Hawaiian koa that each seems to be and sounds very completely different from a conventional spruce/rosewood affair, whereas their skinny matt finishes additionally really feel very completely different to a regular high-gloss acoustic.

It’s a dangerous transfer to current the ever-conservative world of acoustic guitar gamers with one thing so unconventional and say that this isn’t only a gimmick, however a core a part of the top-of-the-line Taylor vary, but it surely’s a press release value making. Guitar constructing is altering, and should change much more as old-growth wooden turns into more and more scarce and costly – and in contrast to within the electrical world the place a coat of paint can obscure the wooden beneath, this modification can be felt much more keenly.

Which makes the 700 Sequence Koa, and the sourcing of recent tonewoods from sudden locations – similar to the brand new City Ironbark 500 Sequence devices additionally launched this 12 months – all of the extra essential to the way forward for the business typically. These initiatives aren’t simply serving to Taylor educate its personal viewers in regards to the sonic excellence of different tonewoods – they’re laying the groundwork for a extra numerous and sustainable future for the business as a complete, even when that alienates some traditionalists within the quick time period. It’s no small factor, and in generations to come back we could all be reaping the advantages.

Launch Of The Yr Award: Fender American Classic II

As fiction’s favorite promoting genius Don Draper as soon as opined, “It’s ineffective to be inventive until you possibly can promote what you create”. Again within the day, a intelligent advert behind a listing or {a magazine} can be all you wanted to shift product by the boatload, however in 2022 we reside in an odd dichotomy – there have by no means been extra methods for manufacturers to succeed in their viewers, but it’s by no means been tougher to seize their consideration.

It’s been an odd 12 months for Fender. After a long time of unprecedented progress and dominance within the guitar world, 2022 noticed company-wide layoffs – most notably on the model’s US manufacturing facility – that spooked a guitar public used to seeing nothing however excellent news coming from the guitar large.

It’s all of the extra spectacular then, that hardly just a few quick weeks later, Fender was rolling out maybe its most essential launch in a decade, and doing so in a method and vogue that reminded everybody precisely the way you make individuals need an electrical guitar in 2022.
The unique American Classic guitars have entered into the trendy traditional territory since they had been discontinued in 2018, and so enthusiasm for the vary’s second coming would at all times have been excessive.

However to ramp that up with a Patti Smith-narrated launch video, celebrating not simply the enduring energy and objective of the Golden Period devices that the AVII vary was meticulously recreating, however of the guitar itself, is goosebump-inducing. Observe that up with a marketing campaign that introduced in everybody from James Bay to Jeff Beck to the Brothers Osbourne and you’ve got a launch that goes past merely making an attempt to promote you a guitar, however one which sells you the thought of guitar as an ever-present in popular culture.

And that’s earlier than we even get into the truth that the guitars themselves have broadly been hailed as a triumph, giving classic obsessives guitars that really do look, sound and really feel nearly precisely just like the devices that rolled off the manufacturing line a long time in the past – with out the 5 or six-figure pricetag.

The Collab Award: MXR Duke Of Tone

Two heads are, because the saying goes, higher than one – however the guitar business has at all times been on the vanguard of collaborative design, going all the way in which again to when Les Paul and John Huis teamed as much as make a solidbody guitar, and past.

Pedals have grow to be a hotbed for collaboration in recent times, with manufacturers placing their heads along with artists or different builders to create attention-grabbing and distinctive merchandise that may not have even been conceived in any other case.

However 2022’s most fun collab did one thing altogether completely different – it introduced a sound that had beforehand been the protect of the only a few and successfully democratised it, giving everybody the possibility to pattern the easiest of recent boutique pedal constructing.

That product is, in fact, the MXR/AnalogMan Duke Of Tone. The AnalogMan King Of Tone is a type of legendary pedals that you just see on professional boards in every single place, however good luck getting one – until you’re ready to pay eye-watering used costs, the present ready listing for a brand new KoT is 4 years.

All of which made even the prospect of the Duke Of Tone – successfully half a KoT in a mini-pedal enclosure – thrilling earlier than we even performed one. However once we did, we couldn’t fairly consider it – this wasn’t only a ‘fairly shut’ tackle the unique, it was remarkably shut, with some tweaks and modifications to the format and performance that some may even want to the true factor.

To do all this in a pedal that’s beneath £200, and isn’t restricted in any approach, is a present to the odd guitarist who couldn’t ponder spending £700+ on a pedal, or ready 4 years for one. Because the AnalogMan himself, Mike Piera advised us, the aim of his team-up with MXR was all about “Getting our pedals out to extra individuals everywhere in the world.” Because of Mike and his fellow pedal pioneer Jeorge Tripps, we are able to all benefit from the fruits of his genius for the primary time.