Must-see Guitars of Summer 2023

As temperatures rise, school lets out, and the sunshine sticks around far into the evening, it’s all but inevitable that the warm-weather fares accompany an inspired mood, whether that’s getting outside, hitting the gym, or finding the energy to beef up your chops and get to work on that next musical project. As the ideas form and you begin to refine them, you may wonder if a new guitar might help bring those sounds from imagination to reality. While we can’t guarantee you’ll write the next bona fide summer chart-topper, we know that changing things up can go a long way in pursuing, honing, and delivering exciting new riffs and licks. So, are you ready to crank up the heat (or maybe, the AC)? From hot dogs and high-heat humbuckers to Sweetwater exclusives and heavy-metal machines, we’ve got something for everyone. Summers are only getting hotter, and we’re showcasing the hottest must-see guitars for the summer of 2023 at Sweetwater!

Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Telecaster Journeyman Relic Electric GuitarErnie Ball Music Man John Petrucci Majesty 7 Electric GuitarIbanez Prestige AZS2200 Electric GuitarReverend Kingbolt RA Solidbody Electric GuitarGibson Les Paul Standard ’50s Faded Electric GuitarESP LTD KH-V Kirk Hammett Signature Electric GuitarHeritage Artisan Aged H-535 Electric GuitarGuild X-175 Manhattan Special Hollowbody Electric GuitarPRS Myles Kennedy Signature Electric GuitarKramer The 84 Hot Dogger Electric GuitarSquier Paranormal Jazzmaster XII 12-string Electric GuitarPRS SE Silver Sky Electric GuitarBreedlove Limited-edition Oregon Concert CE Acoustic-electric GuitarLarrivée P-09 Silver Oak Acoustic GuitarGodin G-Tour Nylon Acoustic-electric Guitar

Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Telecaster Journeyman Relic Electric Guitar

Scorching Texas heat on this twilight Tele

Fender opened the doors of its vaunted Custom Shop in 1987 and staffed it with the world’s finest luthiers, meticulously crafting countless limited-edition axes for legendary artists and collectors alike. The Custom Shop’s reputation has earned it the nickname “The Dream Factory,” both for the artistic freedom of exploration of its craftspeople and the utmost quality of the instruments produced. The Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Telecaster Journeyman Relic electric guitar is no exception, blending iconic imagery and an interstellar finish with cutting-edge electronics and vintage wiring, resulting in a distinct flavor of high-octane tone, thanks to the Custom Shop’s hand-wound Texas Special pickups.  

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci Majesty 7 Electric Guitar

Seven strings to tear down these tone walls!

Ernie Ball and John Petrucci’s partnership goes back for years, with Petrucci being an active interlocutor in the ideation and design processes that have resulted in the numerous permutations of his sought-after signature Majesty guitars. From his multi-decade career at the helm of the indelible prog-metal menagerie, Dream Theater, to the virtuosic performances of his six G3 tours, Petrucci’s work covers an immense variety of tonal territory, and only Ernie Ball could engineer an axe to match. His majesty’s 7-string scorcher blends premier tonewoods with premium appointments, including custom mono/stereo and piezo-toggling controls, serving up advanced, versatile voicing controls to take this Sweetwater-exclusive Eclipse Sparkle Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci Majesty 7 electric guitar from Images and Words to Octavarium and beyond!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Ibanez Prestige AZS2200 Electric Guitar

Classic offset style, contemporary shred sensibilities

For many, the Prestige line of Ibanez axes has been associated with super shredders and speed demons of yore. This long-running series has never strayed from its namesake status, and the Ibanez Prestige AZS2200 electric guitar is no exception. While its aesthetic arrangement harkens to heritage offset shapes, the cutting-edge design sits beneath its elegant exterior. Its maple neck and fingerboard result from Ibanez’s state-of-the-art S-Tech system, which uses a meticulous nitrogen-heating treatment process to bolster the guitar’s dimensional stability, increasing resistance and tolerance to climate changes and thus reducing the risk of warping and twisting. What’s more, the Seymour Duncan bridge-mounted single-coil and neck-mounted mini-humbucker are accompanied by a 2-way mini alter switch, resulting in various voicing options that are never short on character or clarity. Throw in the Gotoh tremolo, and you’ve got shred-worthy expression in an iconic, offset package!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Reverend Kingbolt RA Solidbody Electric Guitar

Electrifying tones fit for a king

One of the many ways in which Reverend has set itself apart is the vertical integration of its instruments: from basic designs and masterful construction to premium tonewoods, innovative assembly features, and, of course, its pickups. Founder Joe Naylor’s predilection for fusing form and function made it all but inevitable that developing the tools for your sonic odyssey would be an entirely synchronous experience from input to output. The Railhammer Hyper Vintage humbuckers of this Reverend Kingbolt RA solidbody electric guitar adorn neck and bridge positions, blending rail- and pole-based pickup designs to deliver tight lows and hefty highs. Moreover, the control scheme includes a bass contour roll-off alongside your standard tone and volume controls, providing plenty of runway for precise onboard tone crafting.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Gibson Les Paul Standard ’50s Faded Electric Guitar

Rock and roll redux: past and present collide!

Jimmy Page, Nigel Tufnel, Jeff Beck, Marc Bolan, and Bob Marley are part of just a sample of the massive number of guitarists across countless genres, eras, and styles who have used Gibson’s iconic Les Paul as the primary tool for sculpting their sounds. With a diverse history, Gibson sought to craft a Les Paul that embodied this voltaic blend of style and story, mixing vintage design cues with modern appointments. Enter: the Gibson Les Paul Standard ’50s faded electric guitar. A double-A flamed maple top is matched with a sonorous mahogany body, satin-nitro-finished to produce the timeless sheen that only gets better with age. The era-accurate neck profile gives you unfettered access to its rosewood fingerboard with time-tested playability. Meanwhile, cutting-edge, pro-level tech includes Plek’d frets and Alnico II Burstbucker pickups, ensuring you’re armed to extract every drop of tone from these PAF-style, heritage-honoring humbuckers — minus the buzz!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

ESP LTD KH-V Kirk Hammett Signature Electric Guitar

The reverend of shred’s return to form

Throughout Kirk Hammett’s decades-long career, eye-catching axes have been a mainstay of his aural arsenal, comprising numerous shapes, colors, classic-monster graphics, and a commitment to the masterwork of Japanese powerhouse, ESP. With the ESP LTD KH-V Kirk Hammett Signature electric guitar, Hammett’s penchant for razor-sharp 6-strings is realized with a masterful blend of rich, ’80s-style panache and modern tone-crafting appointments. Between his signature EMG Bone Breaker active pickup set and the guitar’s korina body and string-through construction, nigh-endless sustain is never out of reach. Eagle-eyed ESP enthusiasts will have likely noted that this is the only V-II currently available without a double-locking tremolo. So, if string-through’s your thing, then this is your chance to ride the lightning of a 24-fret V-II body style — sans the whammy bar!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Heritage Artisan Aged H-535 Electric Guitar

Exclusive, exquisite semi-hollowbody sound

In search of lost tone? Finding the answer can be tricky; balancing vintage design with contemporary versatility can lead to a guitar that seems to have all the fixin’s of a classic but still lacks the ephemeral sonic signature of the bygone era. With the Heritage Artisan Aged H-535 electric guitar, you can rest assured you’re getting all of the sonic excellence of the late ’50s, semi-hollowbody design, minus the hurdles typically associated with older instruments. Seymour Duncan Seth Lover pickups painstakingly capture the era-accurate sonics of Lover’s PAF-style pickups (designed in 1955), while a suite of premium tonewoods harmonizes for an extremely flexible aural offering: a maple body, mahogany neck, and rosewood fingerboard. Plus, this Dirty Lemon Burst finish is available exclusively at Sweetwater!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Guild X-175 Manhattan Special Hollowbody Electric Guitar

Superlative sound, from Manhattan, with love

Guild guitars of every variety have found homes with Sheryl Crow, Robert Smith, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, John Mayer, and countless others since the company’s founding in 1952. From 12-string acoustics to semi-hollowbody electrics, Guild instruments have become a genre-defying staple for musicians around the globe. With the Guild X-175 Manhattan Special hollowbody electric guitar, the company pays homage to its illustrious history, beginning with its first Manhattan workshop. From the DeArmond Dynasonic pickups to the classic-style vibrato, the X-175 is brimming with old-school panache. Players of many classic creeds will find its soft U-shaped mahogany neck perfectly accommodating for thumb-over playing, while the upper cutaway ensures unfettered access to the entire tonal offering of its 24.75-inch ebony fingerboard.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

PRS Myles Kennedy Signature Electric Guitar

From Slash and the Conspirators to Alter Bridge

Looking at Myles Kennedy’s CV, there’s no shortage of impressive names and gigs, from his early days in the Mayfield Four to his taking on the helm of Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators to his time backing up the legendary Slash to his period of rocking alongside fellow PRS-endorsee Mark Tremonti in Alter Bridge. Suffice it to say, a signature axe needs all the premium appointments to get the mileage needed for Kennedy’s diverse oeuvre, and who better than PRS to make that a reality? From its delightful, modern take on an offset design to its ash and maple tonewood dyad and striking contrast inlays, this PRS Myles Kennedy Signature electric guitar oozes with a style befitting a versatile rocker like Kennedy. His signature Narrowfield MK pickups bring out its rich, articulate sonics, raring to reach expressive new heights across its unique 22-fret, 25-1/2-inch scale.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Kramer The 84 Hot Dogger Electric Guitar

It was never a joke!

Okay, that’s not exactly true. Kramer’s initial presentation of The 84 Hot Dogger electric guitar was part of a spirited April Fools’ Day joke that elevated fans’ hunger for pork-powered riffs to stratospheric levels. Fittingly, the tongue-in-cheek design picks up on the same maximalist, ’80s-inspired design cues that have defined the bulk of the company’s offerings in recent years: a single bridge-mounted Seymour Duncan JB humbucker, Floyd Rose 1000 trem, classic banana-style headstock, and high-velocity K-Speed SlimTaper C-shaped neck. Oh, and then there’s the outrageous finish, complete with a ketchup logo to complement the mustard on those franks! You’ve even got a push-pull volume knob for a series-parallel tap. We love this guitar, as it perfectly embodies Kramer’s distinct blend of self-aware humor, historically loud aesthetics, and speed-minded shredding. In fact, we love it so much that we’re exclusively carrying this scorching axe until Kramer runs out for good!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Squier Paranormal Jazzmaster XII 12-string Electric Guitar

Shuddering sounds from Lake Placid to Camp Crystal Lake

A 12-string electric guitar is an increasingly rare breed. Seeing one in the wild might have you second-guessing your sense of reality, questioning the illusory nature of our unreliable memory in the way shadows in the darkness gave rise to the belief in cryptids, or — dare we say it — the paranormal! This Squier Paranormal Jazzmaster XII electric guitar reimagines the heritage offset as a stylish, all-electric 12-string guitar. Its tonewood assembly comprises a poplar body, maple neck, and laurel fretboard, offering the ideal balance of heft, sustain, and clarity you’d need to articulate the sonic flexibility of this dozen-stringed axe. Plus, Fender-designed alnico single-coil pickups faithfully capture every nuance and harmonic of the guitar’s immense tonal scope, with vibrant overtones richly resonating as you conjure a siren’s song of mysterious, tantalizing riffs!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

PRS SE Silver Sky Electric Guitar

A sought-after 6-string spreads its wings

For the uninitiated, the original PRS Silver Sky resulted from a collaboration between PRS and world-class singer/songwriter and guitarist John Mayer. The initially vaunted and difficult-to-obtain instrument has finally found its way into PRS’s SE series of guitars, its lauded stylings brought to an unbeatable price point as well as its detail and craftsmanship remaining uncompromised. The PRS SE Silver Sky electric guitar is a masterful mix of classic appointments and modern performance considerations, boasting a trio of immensely musical PRS 635JM “S” single-coil pickups that bring out the full tonal scope of the guitar’s sonorous, rich, and articulate poplar/maple design. Toss in a 2-point tremolo, and you’ve got a versatile tone machine worthy of the ’60s classics that inspired its indelible design!

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Breedlove Limited-edition Oregon Concert CE Acoustic-electric Guitar

An eye-catching acoustic with spectacular sonic heritage

If there’s one thing that anyone should understand about Breedlove, it’s the company’s commitment to sustainability. More importantly, it’s the fact that such commitment has led to the forging of new pathways in design, construction, and tonewood sourcing that has resulted in exquisitely crafted instruments uncompromised in their sonic possibilities and resounding voicings. This Breedlove Limited-edition Oregon Concert CE acoustic-electric guitar exemplifies the company’s superlative capacity to bridge the worlds of both contemporary technological innovation and heritage, handcrafted luthiery, from the instrument’s tonal triptych of an Umbellularia Californica myrtlewood body, maple neck, and ebony fingerboard to its captivating Tequila Sunrise finish. What’s more, each guitar is hand-voiced with Breedlove’s groundbreaking Sound Optimization system, engineered for peak sonic opportunity.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Larrivée P-09 Silver Oak Acoustic Guitar

Uncompromising craftsmanship from Canada to California

Jean Larrivée may have begun as a mechanic by trade, but the perfect storm of 1970s forces — cutting his teeth with renowned German luthier Edgar Monch, Sr., and the entirety of the countercultural movement — proved to be the perfect foundation for the handcrafted instruments that would define his legacy. This Larrivée P-09 Silver Oak acoustic guitar is a spectacular distillation of the style Larrivée himself would refine under Monch’s tutelage, comprising a moon spruce top, silver oak back and sides, mahogany neck, and ebony fingerboard. This Sweetwater-exclusive, gloss-finished guitar expertly balances projection, articulation, and sustain, culminating in a sonorous 6-string whose distinctive aesthetics are the ultimate compliment to its exemplary voicing — something that could only be achieved through the practice and training refined throughout the decades by someone with a history as rich and artistically important as Jean Larrivée’s.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Godin G-Tour Nylon Acoustic-electric Guitar

A grand tour of two tonal worlds

A cursory glance at the Godin G-Tour nylon acoustic-electric guitar is enough to warrant immediate inspection: an electric-style body shape, a soundhole you’d expect from an acoustic guitar, some top-mounted control knobs, and — wait — are those nylon strings? You have to check that out, right? You’ll be glad you did when you realize this multifaceted 6-string is greater than the sum of its parts. Maple, cedar, and rosewood comprise its premier tonewood suite, masterfully blending the projection, resonance, and note separation you’d want from a standalone nylon acoustic guitar. Its accommodating C-shape profile neck provides the comfort and playability of an electric while retaining the in-hand feel to support both worlds of tone. Plus, an active EPM Q-Discrete pickup is nestled just under the saddle to provide clean, articulate capture, while volume and tone knobs let you tailor your tones to meet your creative needs.

Add to cartLearn MoreAdd to list

Ready to Roll?

We know these guitars represent a solid cross section of sonic and stylistic needs, and while we love every one of them, we know that not every single guitar works for everybody! Whether you’re just looking for different colors or want an entirely different approach altogether, we’ve got literally thousands of guitars available that are guaranteed to rock, thanks to our vaunted 55-point Inspection. Reach out to one of our knowledgeable Sweetwater Sales Engineers at (800) 222-4700, and get started today!
The post Must-see Guitars of Summer 2023 appeared first on inSync.