Gear of the Year 2024
Published on 11 December 2024
2024 is drawing its gate closed, returning to the cosy warmth of the fireplace, and getting ready to call it a year. As 2024 makes its final bow, I feel like now is a good time to take that opportune glance over the shoulder at the year in gear, as it were.
From talking to a number of guitarguitar team members - and forcing my own belligerent preferences in too, no doubt - these are the guitars, amps and pedals that have excited us the most this year.
There aren’t huge qualifiers, to be honest: no specific agenda at all, in fact, other than these are the items we got most excited about, and which delivered the most on their promises. We see tons of gear every year, so if it stuck out for us, it must’ve been pretty dang good, right? Here’s what made the list of Gear of the Year 2024…
The List at a Glance
Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom Les Paul Custom
Universal Audio UAFX Pedals: Anti 1992, Knuckles 92 and Enigmatic 82
Strandberg Essential 6
Not everybody is into headless, ergonomic guitars with square necks, I’ll grant you, but there’s something inarguably great about this new Essential range from Strandberg. Fresh for 2024, the Essential range brings together much of Strandberg’s innovations in a quality instrument that is also significantly less expensive than a standard Boden 6 string model.
You still get the Endurneck, the specially designed hardware, the streamlined body and stainless steel frets, so the ‘wow’ factor very much remains.
Is it for technical metal? Synthwave? None of these? Who cares! That’s the great thing about this guitar: there are no preconceptions hanging from it at all, so you’re able to play anything you like on it, and enjoy that famous Strandberg precision at a lower-than-ever price.
Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom Les Paul Custom
The Epiphone stable is starting to get a little confusing in terms of their own subbrands, but what isn’t confusing is just how close this Epi feels to a real-deal Gibbo Les Paul Custom.
It’s not exactly the same - how could it be? - but the Epiphone Inspired By Gibson Custom Les Paul Custom is damn close, and with the famous ‘open book’ headstock now firmly in place in these pricier models, it may well be the answer to your hard-rocking dreams.
Neural DSP Nano Cortex
Neural DSP really stole the effects show a couple of years back with their Quad Cortex unit. A modeller, multi-effects and all round Swiss Army Knife of great tone, the Quad Cortex was a one-box solution for pretty much all guitarists.
It wasn’t cheap though. Imagine a simple stomp box with much of the Quad Cortex’s power and tone: wouldn’t that be a great thing?
Yes, basically. The Nano Cortex, released a few months ago, is not necessarily a ‘diet coke’ QC, but more an offshoot on it with a specialism in capturing sounds directly from the source. It’s an impressive bit of kit, and reasonably straightforward to use, once you accept the lack of a screen and double-function of many of the controls.
The payoff is a wonderful sounding unit that’s small enough to carry anywhere, all loaded with Neural quality amps, FX and IRs. It’s also almost three times cheaper than a QC.Why haven’t you got one?
Yamaha Transacoustic
What wizardry is this? Here I am, innocently strumming away on a very pleasant Yamaha acoustic guitar, and out of nowhere I hear reverb and delay coming from inside the soundhole! I tap the body with my fingers and all of a sudden I’m hearing loops of my playing!
Goodness me! Is this some sort of enchanted instrument? Not quite, no. This is the latest iteration of Yamaha’s Transacoustic technology, and if you haven’t yet experienced it, you really need to!
The Yamaha Transacoustic TAGC3 a lovely guitar, but let’s get past that and focus on the built-in voodoo. Built in high-quality reverb and delay that comes from within the guitar (via a battery powered effects unit inside the instrument), which fills the room with just the right amount of tasteful ambience? I'll buy it!
PRS SE CE24 Standard
It’s not always the top-priced guitars that get us doing excited backflips here at guitarguitar. These PRS SE CE24 Standards are possibly the most affordable PRS guitars on the market, but man have they hit gold here!
So these are SE versions of the bolt-on necked CE24 guitar, and the ‘Standard’ part of the title refers to the lack of a figured maple veneer on the guitar’s top. Instead of that, PRS have opted for satin finishes on top of the mahogany, and they look excellent in their own way.
Aside from the agreeably stripped-back looks, this guitar wins on sheer playability: you can confidently attack any genre with one of these, and feel like this guitar has your back.
For my money, these are far and away the best guitars you can buy for this kind of price.
Positive Grid Vai Spark Mini
Have you ever wanted the guitar tones of a legitimate shred-maestro? Of course you have! Well, Positive Grid are here for you. They’ve collaborated with Steve Vai to produce a special version of their Spark Mini amp, which has 4 presets built-in that go from clean (called Fresh on the amp) to huge and distorted (Fire).
The Positive Grid Spark Mini Vai combo sports a burgundy tolex covering and there’s a gold mandala design on the speaker cover. Very cool, and the amp also comes with a custom made cable, too! Every self-respecting shred legend needs one!
Squier Hello Kitty Strat
No joke: there was more excitement and anticipation of this guitar landing than pretty much everything else this year. The Squier Hello Kitty guitar is a reissue of an earlier release, which gained a sort of viral popularity when used in YouTube videos and even onstage by players like Dave Navarro.
It was a long time coming, but Hello Kitty is back, and all style/cultural value aside, it’s a serious piece of guitar: a Fender-designed humbucker and a good C shaped neck seal the deal here.
Gibson Jimmy Page 1964 SJ-200
This one is firmly in the ‘aspirational’ area of our pretend spending. Gibson SJ-200’s are already some of the most gorgeous acoustic guitars in the universe, so to have a specially aged one that’s signed by the Led Zep main man is quite a coup indeed.
The Gibson Jimmy Page 1964 SJ-200 doesn’t disappoint, either. In fact it rather shines, with a stunningly strident voice that has a rich balance of frequencies, and less boomy than some jumbos.
Even away from the direct superstar association, this is an astonishing sounding guitar.
Fender Jack White Collection
Props to Fender for seemingly allowing rock’s most eccentric man a free hand in designing his own line of gear. There are two Fender Jack White guitars - a Triplecaster and a Triplecaster Acoustasonic - and an amp, the Panoflex.
Each has strong retro design sensibilities and modern player-centric features, filtered through Jack’s own ideas about what works for him stylistically, functionally and practically.
The Triplecaster has three different custom pickups arranged as an H-S-H, a Hipshot detuner, a Bigsby tremolo and an arcade-style kill switch.
His Acoustasonic has three tones - acoustic, clean electric and overdriven electric - along with a deep C neck and the same black and white styling as the Triplecaster.
Lastly, Jack amp, the Pano Verb, is a stereo amp based on a number of old Fender combos and mixed in with tremolo and a boost circuit. Old school but interesting for sure.
Universal Audio UAFX Pedals: Anti 1992, Knuckles 92 and Enigmatic 82
I can’t choose just one of these awesome new UAFX pedals, because all three are spectacular recreations of highly desirable amps in pedal form.
I say ‘can’t choose’, but my personal favourite is easily the UAFX Anti 1992 pedal, a flawless rendering of the Peavey 5150. They have nailed it. There’s nothing much else to say here except that if you also value the sonics of the MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier (UAFX Knuckles) and the fabled Dumble Overdrive Special (UAFX Enigmatic 82), then you’ll go doolally for these digital mirror images. I know that manufacturers always boast about how good they are at recreating famous tones, but this time, I reckon you can believe the hype. Hey, just try them for yourself, and don’t blame me when your wallet empties itself!
A Great Year for Gear
It has been a great year for gear indeed. From cutting edge tech to faithful recreations of beloved classics, it would seem to me that the guitar is in rude health here at the end of 2024. NAMM 2025 is just around the corner, but until then, I think there’s plenty we can be getting our teeth into right here, eh?
What were your gear picks of the year? Did any of them show up here? If you can’t remember, click the button below to see everything released in 2024. Enjoy!
Click to View Everything Released in 2024
