Ernie Ball Music Man, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of strings, instruments & guitar accessories, including the iconic Slinky® guitar string line, unveiled The Game Changer®, a ground-breaking, all analog pickup switching system that unlocks an extensive library of natural guitar tones previously unavailable in traditional pickup technology at this year’s NAMM show.
While there were many huge names at this year’s NAMM show, including Megadeth, Hell Yeah, Steve Vai and Orianthi to name but a few, one of the player’s that we thought really stole the show was Alex Skolnick. Most readers will know Alex from his work with Testament, but his recent move into the fusion jazz world has also been highly successful, with a new album by his trio due out in March of this year.
There was a big focus on two items for Gibson at this year’s NAMM show, the infamous Firebird X and the company’s bread and butter, the Les Paul. Besides showcasing the Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul, the Marc Bolan Les Paul, two Don Felder Les Pauls and the Alex Lifeson Axcess Les Paul
A long time Laney man, in 2008 perennial shredmaster Paul Gilbert made the switch to Marshall amps after playing with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani on the G3 tour, with his rig of choice becoming the Marshall Vintage Modern 2266c combo amp. So it was no surprise for us to bump into Paul at this year’s NAMM show as the guitar legend signed autographs for an epically long line of fans at the Marshall booth. Though we didn’t get a chance to grab a chat with Paul, he was swamped to say the least, we did get some pics with him next to his new favorite amps to check out.
Martin used this year’s NAMM show to showcase some of their new products including the 1.5 millionth Martin Guitar that Martin’s Dick Boak can be seen holding below.
One of the main attractions at the Fender exhibit during this year’s NAMM show was the wall of 60th anniversary Telecasters. In the middle was the commemorative model, which was surrounded by 12 different Tele’s, all built with very distinct personalities and back stories. One of the most interesting to us was the Tele that was built out of an old railroad bridge, which you can see in the picture below. Though nothing can beat an original Tele from back in the day, these guitars were extremely fun to check out, and very hard to put back on the shelf.
If there was any doubt that PRS guitars would be making some big announcements at this year’s NAMM show, those doubts were wiped away as soon as Paul Reed Smith took to the microphone and begin laying out this year’s new models of amps and guitars, as well as what they have in store for the coming year.
Though Les Paul’s are known for coming in all sorts of solid colors and bursts, there was one LP at this year’s NAMM show that featured a very unique paint job, the Maze 1960 Les Paul. Featuring gold hardware, including a gold pickguard, the body of the guitar is laid out in a black and white maze that snakes it’s way around the instrument. We’re not sure if you can actually solve the maze, but maybe one of our readers will buy one and let us know. Though, it seemed to us that once you picked this guitar up, it’d be hard to do anything but play it for hours on end.
Though the Gibson booth wasn’t as big as some of its peers, Fender had a mammoth display for example, the small room backed a punch as they displayed some great guitars such as the Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul, two classic Don Felder guitars, the Alex Lifeson Axcess Les Paul and the Marc Bolan Les Paul. Besides the big-name signature models, Gibson also had one of their most famous guitars up front and center in their display, the 59 Les Paul Reissue.
As usual, this year’s NAMM show was filled with the big boys of guitar. Gibson, Fender, Ibanez, Schecter, ESP and more were all on hand to show off their new models, to varying degrees of success. While there is always a large focus on the big-name makers, we like to wander around and talk to the smaller, up and coming luthiers as well, and one of the best guitars and makers we found at this year’s show is California based maker, Esoterik guitars.
