Guitar Noize - guitar news, crazy guitar designs and cool guitar videos

I decided to stick with the theme of hollowbody guitars for the week and I recently found Lacey Guitars and thought they were definitely worth a mention. I know I probably say this everytime I feature and Archtop guitar but I love the way they look and would love to own one but alas the mortgage takes priority over my guitar collection. This Lacey Classic is designed for for jazz and blues it has a 15 inch wide mahogany body which is routed out on both sides to create sound chambers, leaving a solid center core to enhance the tone of the guitar. The top is hand carved Spruce which is often used for acoustic guitar tops for its bright sound. It has a 25” Scale Mahogany neck with an Ebony fingerboard and a Brass tailpiece that is hand engraved and plated with 18 carat gold.

There are no prices on the individual models so if you are interested you will have to contact Mark at Lacey for more details but I can tell you that guitars start at $5000. Mark Lacey has had an interesting career starting as a student at London’s College of Furniture & Interior Design in 1974 where he studied “Musical Instrument Technology”. From there Mark moved to Oslo, Norway and spent 4 years working as the repairman for Norsk Musikk Instrument Co. Mark then moved to the US, first Nashville then L.A. where he ran a custom shop for pickup designer Bill Lawrence. Eventually in 1995 Mark settled back in Nashville where has repaired and built instruments for the likes of Leo Kottke, Yngwie Malmsteen and the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I seem to be following a bit of a hollowbody theme this week although Jaros Guitars call them acoustic cavities, and the reason for this is probably because of their neck design which they say is their most important feature. With the 3/4 tenon neck through body design the guitar’s bridge, tuning pegs, nut, pickups & fingerboard are all connected to a single piece of crafted tone wood, which as you can imagine helps create resonance, attack, and sustain. This design apparently also improves the instruments stability, on either side of the through neck sit the acoustic chambers to enhance the tone. An interesting optional feature on Jaros guitars is the Blend Control Configuration, this consists of a Blend knob which allows you to mix the output from the neck and bridge pickups which gives you access to a wider range of tones combinations. This is accompanied by a Master volume superpot from RSGuitarworks and a push-pull tone control pot that gives you the option of playing the magnetic pickups in either humbucking or single coil mode. If you prefer a Gibson style set up you can opt for the Dual Volume Control Configuration with independent volume knobs and a push/pull knob for the coil splitter.

Jaros offer 3 different body styles and the one pictured left is their “Nashville” body that has a carved Quilted Maple top with a Transparent Charcoal finish, this sits on top of a Korina body. The neck is Mahogany with an Ebony fingerboard which has 24 frets and a 25” scale length. This scale length is in between a Gibson and Fender scale length. The nut is made by Earvana, didn’t they write “Smells like teen spirit”? Having never heard of Earvana I looked them up, they have basically made a nut that uses compensated tuning to provide greater intonation. I can’t explain it as well as them so check their explanation here. The guitar also features a Kahler Tremelo and hand wound Lindy Fralin pickups.

A cool feature on the Jaros guitars website is their online guitar builder where you can choose from the various body types, finishes, hardware configurations etc. and see how the guitar will look before you order. Once you have decided on all the options you submit the form and then wait for the quote to be emailed to you. Make sure you check out the Sounds section to hear the kind of sounds possible with these instruments.

The MJ Guitars CatalinaLX is not your average hollowbody guitar design, but then MJ Guitars aren’t a strat clone kind of company, in fact the closest MJ Guitars come to a regular guitar shape is the “Montana” which is loosely based on a Telecaster. One of the most striking things about the CatalinaLX aside from the Exotic Maple top, F holes, vine inlays and gorgeous sunburst finish is the tailpiece which fuses traditional hollowbody design with the modern carved top design that MJ Guitars have created. The main body is made Mahogany with a glued in Birds Eye Maple neck which is finished off with a bound Rosewood fingerboard. The gold hardware, including 2 Seymour Duncan pickups finish off the antique look of the guitar. I’m trying to work out if the headstock is the same as the Mirage, as this seems to be a deluxe hollowbody version, as it is an interesting design. If you go to the Mirage section and scroll to the bottom of the page you will see that the headstock is a tuning fork style design, there is no actual explanation of the reason, maybe it is just for show? If you know different post a comment and let me know!

Now the CatalinaLX doesn’t come cheap at $7950 but there are alternatives. The Mirage I mentioned before is basically a solid body version that comes in various forms and prices starting with the “Custom” which is $3900, then the Semi-Hollow “Rally” at $3000 then the “GT” and “Standard” at $2750. And if that is still too much, check out the “Roadster“ which is MJ’s bolt-on neck guitar with a Wilkinson Trem, Gotoh locking tuners and Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro Strat in the neck and middle position and a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge, and all for $1690.

I was contacted recently by Marcel Rizzolo in Melbourne Australia who let me know about his dad’s business Rizzolo Guitar Company. I’m always happy to find Australian Luthiers so I checked out their site (no not the most elegant url but ignore that). Rizzolo make a wide range of guitars, Archtops, Solid bodies, Acoustic and Bass guitars. They make an extremely nice Sunburst Deluxe Telecaster, have a look in their Electrics section and I noticed some of the solid bodies use a local Australian wood called Tasmanian Blackwood, obviously from Tasmania which is a sustainable resource that is used as a substitute for Mahogany. I found this information about the sustainability:

“Nearly all Tasmanian Blackwood comes from the so-called Blackwood Swamps near Smithton in the north west, where almost pure stands of black wood trees occur. Here, the harvest is strictly controlled and the forest is managed on a 70-year rotation. This program protects the continuity of the limited resource and guarantees a small but reliable supply of excellent mature logs each year. More importantly, this cyclic harvest, combined with natural regeneration, guarantees the unique Tasmanian Blackwood resource will be here always.“ - Ornamental Tasmanian Timbers.

Having said all that, the thing that really caught my eys was the 8 string Archtop which is actually made from European Fiddleback Maple for the back and sides and a favourite for acoustic and archtop guitars, European Spruce for the top. The neck is 3 piece maple with an Ebony fretboard with your choice of a 24 1/2” or 24 3/4” scale length. The tailpiece is also made of Ebony. The guitar features a humbucker in the neck position and an optional Fishman transducer for an extra $600.

Now if 8 string archtops are your thing and you happen to live in Australia, well anywhere really but you will obviously incur shipping costs, this guitar can be yours for $10,000! Yikes! I think that qualifies for my Really Expensive Guitars category!

Last August I discovered something that impressed me a lot, the Novax Fan Fret Neck probably the biggest innovation in fretboard design since the invention of the guitar. The idea is that you get the advantage of:

Accurate tuning and sparkling clarity
The scale length is optimized for each string. The fret spacing is adjusted accordingly for each string providing superior intonation and clarity.

Balanced string tension
The combination of scale lengths yields a greater tension on the low strings and a correspondingly decreased tension on the high strings for a more even feel across the neck.

Even tonal response along the entire neck
Dead spots are minimized and each string speaks with a unique harmonic voice.

Pretty cool huh? Well then I came across Greenfield Guitars and noticed that Michael Greenfield use the Novax Fan Fret Fretboard on a number of their acoustics, they are currently building one for YouTube sensation Andy McKee. The guitar to the left is actually the Don Alder G4 model, just look at that bridge!! If you haven’t heard Don’s incredible fingerstyle acoustic compositions check out his MySpace page.

Michael Greenfield has been playing guitar for over 40 years so he knows a thing or two about how a guitar should sound, feel and play. Michael constructs each guitar in his Montreal workshop and uses the finest woods available to him. In his own words: “Braces are shaped and plates voiced using knives, gouges and chisels. Fingerboards are levelled with hand planes. Necks are individually carved using spoke shaves, rasps, files, scrapers and lots of hand sanding. Archtop plates are carved and graduated using palm and then finger planes, etc. While these methods take longer, I chose to limit my yearly production and concentrate on making each instrument the best one I am capable of.“. Now that is attention to detail that no doubt produce only the finest possible guitars, in fact Michael limits his guitar construction to just 15 a year so if you see one I suggest you snap it up quickly!

Greenfield Guitars online

I’ve recently been made aware of Cornford Amps thanks to Guthrie Govan and Greg Howe who swear by them and Greg says in the sleeve for Sound Proof thanks to Cornford Amps (no green pedals needed!) obviously referring to the broadly accepted holy grail of overdrive pedals the Ibanez TS808. Then recently I was browsing the excellent MusicRadar.com and stumbled across a review for the Cornford Roadhouse 30, a 30 watt single 12 inch Celestion V30 powered, boutique tube amp. Now the Roadhouse range aren’t hand wired like the other models instead opting for the cheaper printed circuit boards however by doing this they have managed to create a boutique amp for the tidy figure of £799 which is around $1600 in the US and add about $50 here in Australia. However we all know that to get the amp in Australia will actually cost about $3000, grr I wish I could bring one back on the plane next time I visit my relatives but at 25kg I have a feeling it might put me over my limit! Just to prove my point, Dolphinmusic.co.uk are selling the Cornford Hellcat Combo for £1999 which is AUD$4157, however they actual retail for $7500 according to Pro Music Australia!

The amp is an all-valve single-channel combo with solid-state rectification, 3 x ECC83/12AX7 preamp valves and 2 x EL34 power valves, it has a series effects loop and Bass, Boost, Gain, Master, Middle, Treble controls. I’m not going to pretend I know what this amp sounds like but if MusicRadar.com’s review is anything to go by this amp is pretty special, they had this to say:

“If you’re serious about your tone, you owe it to yourself and your guitar to hear this amp. We’re more than glad we did! Cornford does it yet again with a killer amp that totally delivers on every front. Miss this one at your peril!“ - It’s on the wishlist!

I just spotted this over at Guitar Flame, Dean Zelinsky founder of Dean Guitars has finally had enough with the apparently questionable quality of Dean Guitars, maybe he has had enough of profiting from Dimebag Darrell’s death too? They currently sell 32 different Dimebag models, and that is not including the guitars inspired by the Dimebag series. Dean had this to say:

“I wanted to get back to what put Dean on the map originally - building high-quality instruments that shape both the image and tone of guitar players, from the beginner to world-class professionals. I can no longer attach my name to the reputation, quality and direction of Dean Guitars or its current objectives.““

Sounds a bit like how Wayne Charvel parted company with Charvel guitars. Although as I commented on Guitar Flame, Wayne Charvel went from Charvel Guitars to creating a custom shop company called Wayne Guitars, so maybe Dean Zelinsky will go from Dean Guitars to creating a custom shop company called Zelinsky Guitars??

I stole the photo of Dean from Modern Guitars Magazine, hope you don’t mind guys, so go and check out more photos of Dean at Namm here. And because I feel guilty and Modern Guitars Magazine do such a great job, check out their recent interview with Greg Howe while you are there.

The Montara set neck is the Michael Rowan Guitars top of the line offering. It embodies all the features of the Journeyman and the Cimarron in a stunningly beautiful, lightweight instrument.

“The pickup configuration includes two tapable humbuckers and a piezo acoustic blend system. This combination of magnetic and piezo systems provides 17 different switched tonal possibilities. Add to that the ability to blend the magnetic and piezo pickups via their own volume controls and you have a remarkably versatile instrument.“

Pattern grade Mahogany is the wood of choice for bodies and necks due its excellent stability and smooth, rich tonal qualities. Quilted and Flame Maples are the woods of choice for the top caps on most models. Ebony, Indian Rosewood and Bois De Rose ( Madagascar Rosewood) are used for the fingerboards and the necks are also fitted with a state-of-the-art, double acting truss rod. There is an optional Bucker Booster preamp which solves the problem of volume drop when tapping humbuckers. The tuners are courtesy of Gotoh and the bridge and tailpieces are either Tone Pros or Hipshot so all top quality hardware. Check out more of the Rowan Custom Guitars range at http://www.rowanguitars.com.

The GZ Guitars - 3 Sisters Series is a collection of 3 Gibson ES-335 guitars, “Flower Dance“, “Back Stage“ and “Heart Strings“. These guitars have all had custom paint jobs courtesy of Jennifer Janesko who is known for her glamour illustrations and paintings featured in Playboy, Maxim and PINUP magazines as well as various airbrush art publications.

“The artist’s work is a fusion of her love for pinup, fashion and glamour. High contrast and sharp direction are the two elements that form the basis of her art. The artist uses airbrush and paintbrush to create mixed media paintings. Studies are created using a wide variety of materials including charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, ink and graphite on various surfaces.“

Here are the stats for each of the 3 guitars:

Flower Dance and Back Stage
This guitar is a USA Gibson ES-335. The custom pickups were made by Peter Florance at Voodoo. Modeled after the early 57’ PAF (no decal) Humbuckers, they have a wonderful, warm, organic tone. Custom made formvar wire give them enhanced mid’s and upper low’s, and result in an incredible sound not found in stock 335’s. All work was done through GZ’s Custom Shop in New Jersey. This guitar is signed by the artist and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Custom Gibson hard case included.

Heart Strings
Heart Strings is a USA Gibson ES-335, a classic Gibson model in the class of the Les Paul. It has stock Gibson Humbucker pickups and hardware. It was signed by the artist and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a custom Gibson hard case.

These guitars are all for sale so head over to GZ Guitars’ website to contact them about a price.

I love playing along to backing tracks you only have to check out my Ultimate Guitar profile and my BluesJamTracks.com inspired YouTube recordings to see that! However when I record covers like my cover of Steve Vai’s ‘For The Love Of God’ I have to use user created backing tracks. Now these are ok but wouldn’t it be great to get your hands on the original tracks minus the lead parts? Well soon you will be able to do just that!!

Steve Vai has announced that he is releasing select backing tracks from Passion and Warfare, Sex & Religion, Alien Love Secrets, Fire Garden, The Ultra Zone, Alive In An Ultra World, Real Illusions: Reflections and others.

““Through the years, whenever I would mix my records I would usually do a mix of specific songs without the lead guitar. This allowed me to play along with the track or make loops to jam to, and because I figured perhaps someday maybe others would like to do the same. Voila! We have arrived at someday.

Playing to these naked tracks, or creating loops of various sections, to endlessly meander over, is a phenomenal way to discover unique musical ideas from within yourself.“

All 5 disks will be offered together in one package at various retail stores, through Vai.com, or can be downloaded by various tracks or volumes at any of the online digital stores (such as the iTunes Music Store). I think I’m going to be buying a copy of Passion & Warfare!

And if that wasn’t enough Vai goodness for you Mr Vai has also uploaded a sneak peak video to his YouTube channel of a recent trio performance of “K’m-Pee-Du-Wee” live on the steps of a Polish Hotel! The full 12 minute version of “K’m-Pee-Du-Wee - Live In Poland” will be available through the iTunes Music Store very soon. He will also be making all of Steve’s official promo videos available through iTunes, along with select cuts from the Live At The Astoria London DVD, and all videos from the Alien Love Secrets DVD.