M. Shadows

In this video, Shads is playing Synyster Gates’ Guitar. He is playing a riff from the song “Sunny Disposition” from their album The Stage. It is best seen at 1:05.

At 1:45, Matt is seen using Syn’s guitar to record the main riff for their song “Critical Acclaim”.

Best seen at 0:33, Matt has a Synyster Custom-S, with a special “REV” inlay. Synyster Gates made this as a tribute to their late drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan.

In the beginning of the video, Shads is using Slash’s Les Paul to help record a riff for the song “Nothing to Say”.

In 2016, during production of The Stage, Sanders encountered Forest Young, a guitar maker who had studied with Tim Meir and Matt Bradford and a graduate of MI GCA, M Shadows purchased the guitar due to its playability and tonal qualities. It was used during the writing of The Stage and continues in use. The guitar was built in a backyard over weekends Forest was allowed to leave the midnight mission on skid row he was left living in after a fire destroyed his apartment and all of his belongings except 1 guitar which is not publicly shown. While attending MI Forest says he had to hide his tools so he could continue going to class because they were considered contraband. the article says:

In fact, Shadows says, he wound up writing much of Avenged Sevenfold’s latest album, the just-released The Stage, using Young’s guitar. “It has a great, nice, warm tone that I found pretty comforting, I guess, when I was writing.”