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(Image credit: Future / Yamaha / Taylor / Kauer Guitars / Mooer)
Welcome to our wrap-up of NAMM 2024! The NAMM show is officially done, folks. The electric guitar craze has slowed down, the influencers have posted their airport montages – and the doors of Anaheim Convention Center have shut for the year (or, at least, stopped admitting anyone waving a NAMM pass…)
All that’s left is a blend of virtuosic guitar displays, bright lights, bruised hands and a nagging feeling that we have to be somewhere else soon.
Did we really see Matteo Mancuso jamming with Cory Wong? Gaze at the northern lights (guitar) with John Petrucci? Hold Jack White’s crazy touring Telecaster? Glance into the very future of music-making and guitar design? You bet we did – and a whole lot more.
This year’s show has proven that the event – and the guitar industry at large – is in great shape, with innovative gear, boundary-breaking players, and, dare we say it, a little more fun than we’ve been used to across recent events.
Now that we’ve had a bit of time to pick up the pieces and organize our thoughts, we’ve put together a list of some of the trends, coincidences, and honorable mentions drawn from across the team.
From a new wave of star-studded semi-hollow signature guitars, to the AI invasion, increasingly fancy foreign builds – and a guitar string vending machine. Here are some of the highlights of the show and the trends you’ll see shaping guitar over the course of the next year.
1. DIY pedals weren’t just a phase – they’re very much here to stay
(Image credit: Third Man Hardware)
When JHS Pedals unveiled its $99 Notaklön – a DIY Klon clone pedal kit – late last year, it sent a shockwave through the guitar community. Every prominent player got their hands on one, and social media was flooded with clips of guitarists documenting the fool-proof assembly process. Heck, we even gave it a go, and thought it was brilliant.
At the time, it was unclear whether the hype surrounding DIY stompboxes was just a passing phase. Signs pointing to the contrary emerged when Catalinbread announced the Knight School Overdrive, but now it seems as though the trend is well and truly here to stay.
Indeed, one of the biggest announcements of this year’s show was Third Man Hardware’s Fuzz-a-Tron, a build-it-yourself fuzz pedal masterminded by Jack White’s gear brand. It is the cheapest mainstream DIY pedal to date, with a price of just $75, and one that potentially points to a new, relatively untouched avenue for gear brands to explore.
If companies can cater to beginner and pro players alike with an engaging, interactive pedal that both sounds good and gives its owner the chance to play pedal maker,