Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

Electro-mechanicals revisited, analogue modulation refined and esoteric ambiences combined

The XS-100 and XS-1 pitch shifters set out to give modern players dominion over the wildest effect on the pedalboard. Boss’s Matt Knight tells us more

Fifty years on from their first successes, Roger McGuinn, the 12-string architect of THE BYRDS , tells Uncut about their exceptional first 18 months – and his relationship with Gene Clark. As the young group make their jet-powered escape from the folk think tank, we hear about making the scene on the Strip, outraging Iowa and a muted response in the United Kingdom. But ultimately how “Eight Miles High” became the spectacular conclusion of the band’s first era. “I almost left The Byrds entirely to go and be in this space band With Dino Valente,” McGuinn tells John Robinson

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