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Thursday
I got in around noon and drove up to Glendora to visit Lee at GMW Guitarworks (http://www.gmwguitars.com/). GMW is one of the best builders in the business. I have 4 custom ordered guitars already and got to see my latest GMW while I was there - it is finished other than waiting for Dimarzio to deliver the neck pickup. While I was there I went through his wood stash and picked out some absolutely stunning flamed redwood that I'm going to have him build an archtop 7-string from. Lee took me and Ian (YouThinkYourFish) out to lunch - it was a fantastic afternoon!
Friday
I got there early and headed straight to the Fender section. The CS stuff was cool but came with way high price tags. The road worn models looked OK - still not sure about these. I completely forgot to check out the new MIM Blackmore Strat - D'oh.
I checked out the Jackson/Charvel guitars. Again some cool stuff but the Custom Shop prices were outrageous.
I ran into Custom Shop artist extraordinaire Mike Learn and talked jazz guitars - always cool to hang with Mike.
Then I hit the main floor.
I played around with the TC Electronic G-Natural - this is a fantastic sounding unit for acoustic guitars - this one goes on the wish list as does the new G-Major 2.
PRS was a zoo but they had some fantastic looking stuff as usual.
I spent some time playing a THD Flexi-50 - very nice amp, quite a versatile range of Marshall tones.
The Boogie Mk. 5 was there - looks impressive - didn't get a chance to try it.
Lunch Box amps were surprisingly cool - http://www.musicgadgets.net/2007/12/...ox-future-amp/
Ran into ~K~ and wife and the Tekkies - then I got sidetracked into the Suhr booth. Suhr's stuff was amazing - they do such great work.
In the evening I attended Steve Vai's master class at the Slidebar in Fullerton. This was fantastic. I've been a huge fan of his since his days with Zappa. He was charming, entertaining, insightful, and just plain fun. This was a fantastic way to spend three hours.
I left the Slidebar and picked up Ron (RacerX) and we went to see a friend of his perform. Unfortunately it was a very bad rap band. Eeek. We went back to his place and cranked some guitars.
Saturday
This day was all about the Deke Dickerson Guitar Geek show. I was there helping Jennifer Batten. I had never heard of Deke or the Guitar Geeks before. It was a great time. There were some great players, great music, and great guitars. Jennifer kicked ass as usual. Guitar Zack was smokin'. Deke was great - he did a set of "Gilligan Guitar" that was a blast. The Rickenbacker Bakelite set was fantastic!
Now for the cool surprise for the night. As it turns out, Jennifer knows Fender Custom Shop legend Fred Stuart very well so he was there. I had a great time talking to Fred - what a gracious and knowledgeable dude! He had some great stories and shared some of his thoughts on building guitars.
This was a fantastic day! BTW, if you were there I was the big guy with big glowing skull shiirt
Sunday
I wanted to get to the show early. Heh.
I went straight to Bogner to try out the Duende Seco Mojado. This is a BRILLIANT amplifier. It starts as a standard Duende 1x12 combo. Then it adds an additional Duende power amp and 2 Weber 8" speakers. By default the second amp is fed just the reverb signal. So your guitar tone comes out dry from the 12" and the side speakers push out the "wet" reverb. This is a huge and clear sound. You can also feed the second power amp the full signal so it sounds like a wide 2x12 combo. You can also use the effects loop to feed the second power amp rather than reverb - I tested it with an MXR Carbon Copy and it was fantastic. They are also releasing just that secondary power amp as a head and 1x12 combo. This is fantastic stuff.
Egnator is introducing a couple more models in their import line - these are really great sounding amps. But the Egnator modular amps are in a whole other league. This system is fantastic. The modules are so versatile and sound so great. Bruce Egnater was very cool - he started using me and Eric (AlexL) to demo the amps for a half hour
Taylor guitars had a nice setup. I played a couple new custom shop guitars - man were they nice! I spent a bunch of time with the new T3 - this is a great guitar! It's the T5 body style but with a solid center block and it has a pair of humbuckers. You can get it with a Bigsby as well. They added a trem option to their standard electrics.
I got in around noon and drove up to Glendora to visit Lee at GMW Guitarworks (http://www.gmwguitars.com/). GMW is one of the best builders in the business. I have 4 custom ordered guitars already and got to see my latest GMW while I was there - it is finished other than waiting for Dimarzio to deliver the neck pickup. While I was there I went through his wood stash and picked out some absolutely stunning flamed redwood that I'm going to have him build an archtop 7-string from. Lee took me and Ian (YouThinkYourFish) out to lunch - it was a fantastic afternoon!
Friday
I got there early and headed straight to the Fender section. The CS stuff was cool but came with way high price tags. The road worn models looked OK - still not sure about these. I completely forgot to check out the new MIM Blackmore Strat - D'oh.
I checked out the Jackson/Charvel guitars. Again some cool stuff but the Custom Shop prices were outrageous.
I ran into Custom Shop artist extraordinaire Mike Learn and talked jazz guitars - always cool to hang with Mike.
Then I hit the main floor.
I played around with the TC Electronic G-Natural - this is a fantastic sounding unit for acoustic guitars - this one goes on the wish list as does the new G-Major 2.
PRS was a zoo but they had some fantastic looking stuff as usual.
I spent some time playing a THD Flexi-50 - very nice amp, quite a versatile range of Marshall tones.
The Boogie Mk. 5 was there - looks impressive - didn't get a chance to try it.
Lunch Box amps were surprisingly cool - http://www.musicgadgets.net/2007/12/...ox-future-amp/
Ran into ~K~ and wife and the Tekkies - then I got sidetracked into the Suhr booth. Suhr's stuff was amazing - they do such great work.
In the evening I attended Steve Vai's master class at the Slidebar in Fullerton. This was fantastic. I've been a huge fan of his since his days with Zappa. He was charming, entertaining, insightful, and just plain fun. This was a fantastic way to spend three hours.
I left the Slidebar and picked up Ron (RacerX) and we went to see a friend of his perform. Unfortunately it was a very bad rap band. Eeek. We went back to his place and cranked some guitars.
Saturday
This day was all about the Deke Dickerson Guitar Geek show. I was there helping Jennifer Batten. I had never heard of Deke or the Guitar Geeks before. It was a great time. There were some great players, great music, and great guitars. Jennifer kicked ass as usual. Guitar Zack was smokin'. Deke was great - he did a set of "Gilligan Guitar" that was a blast. The Rickenbacker Bakelite set was fantastic!
Now for the cool surprise for the night. As it turns out, Jennifer knows Fender Custom Shop legend Fred Stuart very well so he was there. I had a great time talking to Fred - what a gracious and knowledgeable dude! He had some great stories and shared some of his thoughts on building guitars.
This was a fantastic day! BTW, if you were there I was the big guy with big glowing skull shiirt
Sunday
I wanted to get to the show early. Heh.
I went straight to Bogner to try out the Duende Seco Mojado. This is a BRILLIANT amplifier. It starts as a standard Duende 1x12 combo. Then it adds an additional Duende power amp and 2 Weber 8" speakers. By default the second amp is fed just the reverb signal. So your guitar tone comes out dry from the 12" and the side speakers push out the "wet" reverb. This is a huge and clear sound. You can also feed the second power amp the full signal so it sounds like a wide 2x12 combo. You can also use the effects loop to feed the second power amp rather than reverb - I tested it with an MXR Carbon Copy and it was fantastic. They are also releasing just that secondary power amp as a head and 1x12 combo. This is fantastic stuff.
Egnator is introducing a couple more models in their import line - these are really great sounding amps. But the Egnator modular amps are in a whole other league. This system is fantastic. The modules are so versatile and sound so great. Bruce Egnater was very cool - he started using me and Eric (AlexL) to demo the amps for a half hour
Taylor guitars had a nice setup. I played a couple new custom shop guitars - man were they nice! I spent a bunch of time with the new T3 - this is a great guitar! It's the T5 body style but with a solid center block and it has a pair of humbuckers. You can get it with a Bigsby as well. They added a trem option to their standard electrics.
I guess I'll have to build my own USA version. Nothing against MIM guitars, just thought it was more fitting to build it to his 70's original. Hmm, parts donors here I come.
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