Product Announcements

Hayes Mandolins, built by hand by luthier Rick Hayes, has used the launch of their first guitar model as the occasion to change company name to Rick Hayes Instruments. Rick has teamed up with fellow luthier Dann Ross to augment his

Just in time for the summer festival season, Gibson has unveiled two new mandolins priced to catch the eye of the budget-conscious picker. They have a style A and a style F model in this new Jam Master series, both

Charles Dumont, who developed the MandoChords and BanjoChords apps for the iPhone, has a new addition to his roster. JamBuddy will turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into... well, a jam buddy. It will provide either mandolin or guitar accompaniment for

It's been ten years since the Sam Bush model Gibson mandolin was introduced to market. During that time, it has been a strong seller for Gibson, and the impetus for them to create limited edition artist models for a number of

After many months of prototyping, Composite Acoustics is set to officially unveil their Tim Stafford signature model guitar on May 3. This has been Tim's primary guitar on the road with Blue Highway for the past year or so, and

Bill Evans is the latest professional banjo player to be recognized with a signature model Kel Kroydon banjo, made by the American Made Banjo Company. Bill's banjo has a maple neck and resonator, with a Hearts and Flowers inlay in the

We got a note yesterday from Charles Dumont, who develops music applications for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch devices. We posted last fall when he released his MandoChords app, a visual chord speller for mandolin. Now, he notes the release of

The folks at Blue Chip Picks, whose line of composite flatpicks have hit the mark with some of the top guitarists and mandolinists in bluegrass music, have now released a line of thumbpicks for banjo players. The pick material is riveted

After what can only be described as a labour of love, Roland White has announced that his book, The Essential Clarence White - Bluegrass Guitar Leads, is now available. The 102-page spiral-bound book features 14 songs and tunes with variations, in

Here are a couple more tidbits from the recently concluded NAMM show in Anahiem, CA. Paige Capo introduced a revised design for their popular capo, which they say makes it faster and easier to use. They make capos for banjo, guitar