Jimmy

I have spent the last three months living with seven of the most talked-about affordable semi-hollow electric guitars, and I want to share what I learned. If you are hunting for the best semi hollow electric guitars under 500, the short answer is that you no longer have to settle for a thin-sounding hollow box … Read more

When I started shopping for my first electric guitar, I figured anything under the best electric guitars under 500 would feel like a toy. I was wrong. After three months of testing eight starter kits, recording clips, and bugging every guitarist friend I have, I found that this price tier holds the sweet spot between … Read more

Picking the best string gauge for 7 string guitar is the single biggest decision that shapes how your extended-range instrument feels, sounds, and tracks. After spending weeks testing gauge sets across 25.5″, 26.5″, and 27″ scale necks, I learned the hard way that the wrong gauge leaves your low B flubby or your top strings … Read more

Finding the best lightweight stage pianos used to mean settling for toy-like action or stripped-down sounds. After three months of testing 10 contenders with our team of gigging keyboardists, we found the opposite is true now. Modern portable stage pianos deliver authentic weighted action and concert-grade sound engines while staying light enough for one person … Read more

Choosing the best ukuleles size for beginners comes down to one key question: how big are your hands? After helping dozens of new players find their first uke, I have learned that the wrong size kills motivation faster than anything else. Ukuleles come in four standard sizes: soprano (21 inches), concert (23 inches), tenor (26 … Read more

Picking up a guitar for the first time can feel like standing in front of a wall of options, and the dreadnought is the body shape that most beginners picture when they imagine an acoustic. A dreadnought delivers that big, full-bodied sound that fills a room, strums cleanly through chord changes, and feels right in … Read more

I spent the last three months testing eight of the most popular budget dreadnought acoustic guitars on the market, strumming through open chords, fingerpicking patterns, and campfire progressions. The truth is, this is a remarkable time to buy a cheap acoustic guitar. Manufacturers have figured out how to deliver solid tops, reliable tuning machines, and … Read more

I spent six weeks testing small guitar amps for recording in my home studio, running each one through clean and driven tones, plugging them into my audio interface, and capturing tracks at midnight without waking my kids. After over 40 hours of recording sessions, I found that the best small guitar amps for recording all … Read more

When I plugged my first Shure SM57 into a cranked Marshall 4×12, I finally understood why engineers keep this exact mic in their mic locker for decades. The growl, the air, the way the speaker cone’s character translates into the recording – it was right there, no EQ trickery required. That experience convinced me that … Read more

Buying a high-end bass is one of the most emotional decisions a bassist will make, and I have helped dozens of players walk through that exact decision in my years reviewing instruments. The phrase “best high end bass guitars for the money” gets thrown around a lot, but in it actually means something specific: getting … Read more