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

In fact not just a single guitar giveaway but 13 guitars are being given away and all you have to do to be in the running is to record a video lesson and post it to the competition site and you could win either 1 of 12 Ovation Celebrity guitars or a custom Adamas guitar valued at $5000. The 12 guitars will be awarded weekly, through October 12, 2010 so record, upload and get your friends to vote!

To see a video explaining the contest rules in detail or to read more information head over to the contest site: http://contest.ovationguitars.com/ovationguitars/

http://www.ovationguitars.com/

From his luthier’s shop in Tryon, NC Jay Lichty produces handcrafted guitars and ukuleles. The blend of expert craftsmanship and skill as a musician come together in each instrument to create one-of-a-kind guitars and ukuleles that are treasures to own and to play. Jay builds OM, Dreadnought and Parlor style guitars. The majority of his instruments are made to order and designed for that specific musician / customer. He works with the finest domestic and exotic tonewoods including Brazilian Rosewood, Hormigo, Mahogany, Cocobolo and many others and works with the customer in choosing binding, inlay, tuners, pick-ups, etc. The end result are visually stunning and beautiful sounding acoustic instruments. Above is a video of the Tom Gossin (who plays in country band Gloriana) receiving his Lichty guitar and playing it for the first time.

And here is a slideshow of Tom Gossin’s guitar being made:

And finally here is the man himself Jay Lichty playing one of his own creations, a Brazilian Rosewood Guitar, OM style, Red Spruce top, Ebony fretboard and bridge and Grover tuners:

Lichty Guitars website
Lichty Guitars on Facebook

The Ibanez SAGE series of Acoustic guitars is aimed at beginners but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that although it is a budget guitar it certainly doesn’t play like one and it comes with a built-in tuner all for the incredible price of AUD $395 or GBP 129 in the UK. The SGT is available in 2 body shapes, the Dreadnaught as per this review model and a Jumbo. The SGT120E is available in Honey Sunburst or Vintage Brown Sunburst and has a Spruce top and Rosewood Bridge & Fretboard with Black & White Perloid Block Inlays. The tuners are Chrome Ibanez Smooth Tuner AS which do the job perfectly and the nut & saddles are made from Ibanez’s proprietary material Ivorex II while the bridge pins are Ibanez’s Advantage Bridge Pins.

It is pretty much impossible to fault a guitar at this price point that sounds, plays and looks as good as this guitar, it doesn’t have an onboard preamp so that you can plug directly into a P.A. or recording interface but that is what helps keep the cost down. Although this guitar is manufactured in Indonesia the quality is very high, I reckon if this exact guitar had come out of the Japan factory it would have a price tag double or triple what this guitar is worth, it just goes to show how far the budget Ibanez manufacturing process has advanced.

I’m eager now to try some of the higher end Ibanez acoustics, although worried that it may lead to another attack of Guitar Acquisition Syndrome!

http://www.ibanez.com

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.

With NAMM just around the corner there are a number of leaks going around regarding new Ibanez models for 2010 and one that perhaps many would not have expected is the release of a Joe Satriani Signature Acoustic guitar, the JSA10 pictured above is, according to Voo-du blog going to retail for €1,111 and there will be a budget version called the JSA5 for about half that price. The guitar looks very similar to Steve Vai’s signature Ibanez acoustic so nothing really groundbreaking going on here I think more people will be excited by the release of the 24 fret JS series guitar called the JS2400 which will feature the Dimarzio Pro Track neck pickup. Also not sure if there is any truth in this but apparently the JS series are switching back to the original Edge tremelo, maybe this is due to not being able to use an intonation tool on the Edge Pro? Who knows we will have to wait and see what is uncovered at NAMM!

You may have seen yesterday that I featured Ken Parker Archtops, well when I found out about those guitars I also found about Jeff Babicz’s Signature Series guitars. Like Ken Parker, Jeff Babicz already has a successful guitar company Babicz Guitars which feature not only a very unique design and innovative features such as the Lateral Compression Soundboard, the Torque Reducing Split Bridge and Continually Adjustable Neck. Oh and if you don’t know who Jeff Babicz is, before starting Babicz Guitars he worked at Steinberger as the Plant Manager and built guitars for Eddie Van Halen, Allan Holdsworth and David Gilmour.

Pictured left is a Collosal Model which is the largest of all the Babicz Signature Series guitars. It’s a full size Jumbo and the pattern for construction was taken directly from a 1949 Gibson SJ-200. The model shown in the photo is made from African Mahogany with Side Sound Ports, German Spruce Soundboard, Vermilion Binding and Ebony Fretboard, Bridge and Retainer. The signature series guitars are all hand built by Jeff and are therefore very limited edition. Check out the construction process on the site with a series of photos that take you from start to finish.