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

Check out these brand spankin’ new ESP Prashant Aswani Signature models, as yet there are no details up on the new ESP site but as you can see both guitars feature a Floyd Rose Trem, 24 Fret Maple neck and fretboards and the retro headstock which is my favourite ESP headstock design. The second guitar, the PA Natural features a quilted Maple top with matching headstock and an Alder body. It has Dimarzio PAF Pro and a DiMarzio Humbucker From Hell in the neck.

Check out my interview with Prashant and make sure you check out his MySpace page below to hear Prashant’s incredible fusion playing.

These guitars are available through the ESP Custom Shop.

UPDATE: check out this free video lesson with Prashant over on the ESP site!

Prashant Aswani - official site
Prashant Aswani’s MySpace page

The ESP Guitar Company began as a small custom shop started by Japanese businessman Hisatake Shibuya making replacement parts and accessories. In 1985, ESP began building entire custom guitars for special customers. By 1986, ESP’s guitars had an office in New York City making custom guitars for players in the US. Dokken’s George Lynch and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett chose ESP to build new guitars to their respective specifications, and the company quickly became the first choice for rock and metal players who wanted more than an off-the-shelf axe could deliver.

In 2010 ESP Guitars commemorate 35 years of being in business, quite a milestone, they now distribute guitars to 60 countries around the world and since 1996 have offered their Korean and Indonesian manufactured LTD models at a lower price in order to gain even more market share.

The new site is really just a re-skin of the old site but the new lick of paint is a welcome update, it’s a shame that the only new models announced are Asian made LTD’s.

Check out http://www.espguitars.com

Brian Wampler from Wampler Pedals recently contacted me to let me know that he had the chance to meet Brad Paisley recently as Brad owns 3 Wampler Pedals, the Analog Echo, Ego Compressor and Underdog Overdrive. Brad managed to get a photo of Brad’s pedalboard which you can see above features Brian’s Underdog Overdrive and Analog Echo. It seems Brad is a Delay fan, not only does he have the Wampler Analog Echo but also a Way Huge Aqua Puss, Boss DD-2 or DD-3? and Empress Superdelay.

Brad has a number of guitars that he uses as you can see but the Telecaster’s with the squiggly headstock are made by Crook Custom Guitars, who by the way also makes some very nice Strat and Les Paul type guitars too check out their gallery here.

Finally Brad is currently using Dr. Z amplifiers and you can see a video below of Brad trying out a Dr. Z. The collaboration between Dr. Z and Brad Paisley lead to the production of the Prescription Extra Strength amp.

Check out my brother’s guest review of Brad Paisley’s Play album.

This is a cool video as it shows something that I have not seen mentioned yet. We all know that Dean Guitars have a few Dave Mustaine models including the new Dean Zero but I had no idea that Dean were building a Dave Mustaine signature acoustic guitar called the Mako. As you will see in the video above the guitar is called a Mako because it has shark gill shaped soundholes, shark tooth inlays and a sharp cutaway, the Mako also has a built in tuner which I find really useful on my own Takamine.

The Mako comes in either Classic Black or Transparent Black which has a Flame Maple top which looks really cool and works better with the Shark theme. For more info head over to the Dean Guitars Mako product page.

Framus are perhaps more famous for their Amplifiers than their guitars these days, at least to me they are, but the brand have been around since the 1940’s in Germany although they went bankrupt in the 70’s only to be revived in 1995 by Warwick. They have a nice range of Vintage guitars drawing on their early classic designs which you can check out on their Framus Vintage site. These days Framus have a number of modern guitar models available as well as a custom shop.

For 2010 Framus have announced a slew of new models from 2 base models shapes, the Diablo and the Panthera. Above left is the singlecut style Panthera Supreme which features set neck Mahogany construction with an Ebony fingerboard, Mahogany body with AAA carved Flamed Maple top, Seymour Duncan SH-1 ’59 model (neck), SH-14 Custom 5 (bridge) pickups, Framus locking machine heads and TonePros tune-o-matic bridge. The Diablo Supreme pictured above left has similar features except it has a Rosewood fingerboard. There are many variations on these 2 guitar types including a Panthera 7 String and Diablo 7 String and for those of you who need a Floyd Rose trem the Diablo Progressive X.

You can check out the full range of 2010 additions on the Framus site here.

Nadia (Jeff Beck ‘You Had It Coming’)

This is a cover of Nitin Sawhney’s beautiful track from the 1999 album Beyond Skin. Nitin Sawhney is definitely one of my favourite artists, I adore his work. And in fact he’s one very, very fine guitar player too and he nearly made it in to one of the earlier 5s. Anyway, I should get back to Jeff! The melody in the original is an incredible and heavenly vocal. Frankly Jeff Beck does an astonishing job of capturing that vocal on a guitar. Until I saw him play this live I had absolutely no idea how he had managed it. Was it whammy bar? Was it a slide? Watching the video it’s like “ah, ok… it’s both!”.

Loose Cannon (Jeff Beck ‘You Had It Coming’)

I totally loved this track when I first heard it. It’s been “borrowed” so much since by guitar players that obviously felt the same way! I adore the melody and how it’s played. Jeff has this way of getting stuff going on that no-one else seems to be able to do. But my favourite thing with Jeff’s playing is that he is one of the few who is absolutely unafraid of playing with a massive dynamic range. The solo on this is an amazing example lightly picked fuzzy harmonics. Just awesome.

Thinking about it now, this album is jammed full with great guitar. Some of my highlighst would be, erm… Roy’s Toy has a ring modulator and stuff in the solo. I love ring modulators. It deserves an entry just for that. I love the riff on the track Dirty Mind. What an amazing riff that is. Suspension is haunting. Anything by Jeff would be recommended to guitar players so I won’t even state it.

Schism (Tool ‘Lateralus’)

I think Schism was a riff that Tool bass player, Justin Chancellor, took to rehearsal and it obviously evolved into this massive multi layered piece. Adam Jones has featured a few times as an inspiration of mine and I think Schism is a fine example of why. He knows how to join the band, weld his playing together, work against, drop off into the background, come to the foreground and he writes some pretty fine parts too. It’s so easy to miss just how this style he has of evolving his layered guitars throughout a piece helps to build the unique sound of Tool.

Aerials (System of a Down ‘Toxicity’)

Toxicity is an absolutely awesome album. This album made me depressed for a while! The truth is the whole of Toxicity is fantastic. I picked out Aerials just because I love the song.

Believe (King’s X ‘Manic Moonlight’)

A great riff from Ty Tabor. He really has a great gift for building this amazing understated grooves.

Have a great weekend!
Paul.