COOL GEAR ALERT: Ernie Ball Music Man LIII
Steve Lukather recently unveiled the LIII, a new signature model which takes his established Luke model and updates it with a few tweaks – most notably new custom-voiced passive DiMarzio pickups in place of the active EMGs on the Luke model. And the new, larger body shape was a response to requests from players who felt that the standard version made them look too big. Luke is currently touring Australia with G3 and for Bluesfest, and this guitar sounded incredible in the hands of both Luke and Mike Keneally. And man, I want one. And I have a huge – huge – interview with him to post when I’ve finished typing it up, but here’s a teaser:
“I’m loving mine. I wanted to do a different take on it. Non-active DiMarzios, a little bigger body. It’s a simplification. But we’ve had such fantastic success with the guitar over the years, why not see where this goes? I listen to what people say. Constructive criticism, I’m all about. But if someone’s going to go on the internet and beat the shit out of me for a laugh, there’s not much I can do about that. But I listen to these things. They (Ernie Ball) were a little bit opposed to this at first, but we found a happy medium and so far the reactions are really positive.”
And here are some pics from NAMM:
Jaden Rose Guitars at NAMM 2012
Just stumbled across this video on YouTube of the fine folks from England’s Jaden Rose Guitars capering at the NAMM Show (including some great shreddage by Tosin Abasi of Animals As Leaders). These guys make incredible guitars that are especially shred and djent-friendly. Six-strings, seven-strings, eight-strings, fixed bridge, Floyd Rose, extended scale, multi-scale, exotic woods, DiMarzio pickups, ridiculously comfortable necks… want!
AmpKit gets Retina graphics, new gear
AmpKit, the killer amp sim app by Agile Partners, has just been updated to feature Retina display resolution as well as a few new gear models: the Trace Elliot 1215 bass amp, Rocktron Metal Planet Distortion and Rocktron HUSH Noise Reduction. And save 33-40% on new gear and 50% on AmpKit+ for a limited time.
Agile, of course, also recently announced AmpKit Link HD, an incredible new iOS interface which not only captures your guitar sound in higher fidelity than before, but also allows you to charge your iPad while still using it for your amp sim. Here’s a great video of Kenny Wayne Shepherd demonstrating AmpKit (and talking up the great Guitar World Lick Of The Day app) at NAMM 2012.
NAMM Jackson Custom Shop Pablo Santana 7-string for sale
Remember the killer Jackson Custom Shop B-7 7-string built by Pablo Santana which I wrote about here? Well it’s now for sale at The Music Zoo.
The guitar features a transparent purple quilted maple top, mahogany body, neck-through mahogany neck, ebony fretboard, 25.5″ scale length, inlays by Ron Thorn, EMG 707 humbuckers, Floyd Rose tremolo and black/gold hardware.
You can buy this killer one-of-a-kind axe at the Music Zoo’s eBay store here.
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), guitarworld.com, Tone Deaf, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com