I’m a sucker for a good factory tour. I worked in a manufacturing plant throughout college and have always been fascinated by how products are made. As a guitarist, I’m especially interested in how guitars are made, so I was pleased to see that Premier Guitar magazine posted this past summer some videos of their factory tour of Nazareth, Pennsylvania’s Martin Guitars. Part I of the factory tour is posted below.

After checking out part I, also check out part II, part III, and part IV.

The internal combustion guitar:

Your touch sends signal to a small amp (6 watts or less) or processor combo

The small amp sends the conditioned signal back to the Internal Combustion Guitar

The Internal Combustion Guitar power driver reenergizes the now harmonically enriched and colored string tone

The ICG looks like a pretty interesting innovation. According to the luthier, Woody Bruce, it allows you to get great tone at very low volumes. Hear Woody B discussing the guitar:

(Thanks David!)

Fender has launched a mini-site for the release of the NOS and Relic David Gilmour Signature Series Stratocasters. The mini-site has a lot of great features, including a timeline of the guitar, details about the guitars, the story behind the guitars, and media from Gilmour’s recent Live at Gdansk DVD.

I first heard about the Fender Kenny Wayne Shepherd Artist Series Stratocaster several months ago, but didn’t hear much about it from Fender. However, I noticed today that Fender has information about the guitar on their Web site.

The guitar is based on Kenny’s own ‘61 Fender Strat and features custom-voiced Kenny Wayne Shepherd pickups, an alder body, maple neck w/ rosewood fretboard, and 21 jumbo frets.

This guitar looks pretty nice and has a street price in the $700-$750 range. Guitar Center is reporting that models will be available in October.

As an interesting (to me) aside, Kenny Wayne Shepherd played a small role in my wife and I getting together. At the time, my wife and I had mutual friends and one night I mentioned that I was going to the KWS concert that was coming up. At the time, KWS was not all that well known, but my wife surprised me by knowing who he was and being interested in going to the show. Not only that, she was a fan of SRV, as well. She’s had my heart ever since!

Fender has recently introduced the Jim Adkins JA-90 Thinline Telecaster. Adkins is the guitarist and frontman for Jimmy Eat World. I’m not all that familiar with Jimmy Eat World, but this looks like a nice guitar! The guitar features P-90s, a semi-hollow Ash body, medium jumbo frets and comes in red or black.

(via Electric Guitar Review)

Stevie Ray Vaughan, in an October 1984 interview with Guitar Player Magazine, responding to the question “Do any of your guitars have maple necks?”:

Lenny does. It has a real clear tone, and the pickups are microphonic-you can hear it when you hit the pickguard. But when you play it soft, it sounds great. When I first got the guitar, it had a rosewood fretboard, but it was thinner, and that bothered me. So I put a copy of a Fender maple neck on there that Billy Gibbons gave me. I like the rosewood necks usually, because, for one thing, when you sweat, you don’t get blisters. It seems like the finish on a maple neck gets hotter, and there’s more friction. As hard as I play and as much as I sweat, I get sore enough as it is. There’s a fatter sound on the rosewood, as far as I can tell. It’s not as bright. The ebony fretboard seems a little clearer, but it’s fat, too.

I’ve previously expressed my preference for rosewood fretboards. It’s interesting to hear Stevie Ray’s opinion on the matter.

DavidGilmour.com is reporting that a Fender Custom Shop David Gilmour Stratocaster, which is modeled after Gilmour’s famous Black Strat, will be released on September 22, 2008. The release is scheduled to coincide with the release of Gilmour’s “Live in Gdansk” album, which will also be released on September 22.

Here’s what DavidGilmour.com has to say about the guitar:

In the two years that the guitar has been in discussion, a number of prototypes have been produced, and the final version was only approved when David was happy that all elements combined to make a sound that was as close as possible to his own guitar’s. The ‘Black Strat’ comes in a hard case (by G&G) stuffed with extras: Phil Taylor’s ‘Black Strat’ book, a set of GHS David Gilmour Boomer strings, a copy of the 3-disc version of Live In Gdańsk, a cable by Evidence Audio, a deluxe Fender leather strap, and a David Gilmour plectrum. The interior of the case is a plush green, including embroidered David Gilmour and Fender Custom Shop logos.

There will be two models: a relic model and a ‘New Old Stock’ model:

• The ‘Relic’, which replicates the ‘Black Strat’ as it is today with aged parts and worn paint, plus all the wear and tear of David’s heavily-used 30-year-old guitar – with no backplate.
• The ‘New Old Stock’ model, which replicates the ‘Black Strat’ as it is now – but with all-new parts, ‘new’ paint finish and an additional white plastic backplate. The NOS model should be found at a lower retail price than the ‘Relic’.

Looks nice!

* Photo credit: DavidGilmour.com

(via Strat-o-Blogster)

Introduction
Last year, I wanted something a little different than the Strat I was playing. I wanted a guitar with a little bit thicker sound and a little more versatility. I love my Strat, but after Gibson lost their lawsuit against PRS (which had prevented PRS from producing the Singlecut models), I anxiously awaited the re-release of the SE Singlecut series.

Ever since I first saw Paul Reed Smith guitars over 15 years ago, I’ve wanted to own one. I thought (and still think) the paint jobs and attention to detail were amazing. However, back then I was just starting out and had no need for such a high-end guitar. In fact, I still don’t really have a need for such a high-end guitar. Enter the SE series of PRS guitars. The PRS Singlecut SE guitars have a street price of around $600.

According to Paul Reed Smith, it was actually Carlos Santana’s idea to create the SE series. He thought that more players should be able to see and obtain the quality of the PRS guitars. Subsequently, PRS found a manufacturing facility in Korea and taught them how to make PRS guitars.

Guitar Specs
Body – Singlecut mahogany body with maple top & flame maple veneer (except for opaque black)

Neck – 25″ scale length mahogany 22-fret neck with rosewood fretboard and moon inlays, Neck carve – wide fat

Hardware – PRS designed stoptail, PRS designed tuners

Electronics – PRS designed treble and bass humbucking pickups, Volume and tone control with 3-way toggle pickup selector

Playability
Out of the box, this guitar played great. I haven’t had to do any setup changes in the 12 months since I’ve had the guitar. The neck feels great in my hands. It’s a little thinner than my Strat neck, and I generally prefer a slightly thicker neck, but the wide-fat PRS neck is very smooth and fast. I don’t like really low action, and this guitar’s action was set up perfectly straight from the factory. Not too high, and not too low.

The guitar is fairly light and comfortable. It feels a couple of pounds lighter than my Strat. However, I usually play sitting down, so weight isn’t really an issue.

Coming from a Strat-style guitar, it took me a few days to get used to the different position of the guitar when sitting down. The guitar sits slightly to the right of where I’m used to playing. It also took a few days to get used to the slightly shorter scale length (25″ vs. 25.5″ for the Strat). That being said, it really didn’t take long at all to get used to the guitar, and once I did I’ve really enjoyed it; it’s a fantastic playing guitar.

Sound
This guitar sounds great for a mid-range guitar. The pickups have a smooth sound, but can get nasty if you want them to. I find that it’s really easy to get a Cream-era Clapton sound out of the guitar. But, I can also turn up the gain and use the bridge pickup and get a metal sound, if and when I want to. I’ve been playing the guitar primarily through a Fender G-DEC practice amp, and the sound is fairly impressive. A lot of people on the forums recommend changing the stock pickups on the PRS SE guitars. I don’t know if I agree. The stock pickups sound great for the playing I do, although I don’t do any gigging. For most people, I think the stock pickups are fine.

Conclusion
After 12 months of ownership, I still really like my PRS Singlecut SE guitar. I have the tobacco sunburst finish model, which looks fantastic hanging on the wall. Additionally, the guitar plays and sounds great for a mid-range guitar. In fact, ever since getting the guitar last year, I’ve been playing it more than my Strat, although I go through phases where I play one guitar more than the other.

Compared directly to the Epiphone Les Pauls, the PRS Singlecut SE model is a better value, in my opinion. The quality of workmanship is fantastic for a guitar in this price range. I haven’t found anything that I’ve wanted to change or upgrade on the guitar. It’s not an American-made PRS, but it’s the next best thing and it’s less than a third of the price of an American-made PRS guitar.

If you’re looking for a dual-humbucking guitar in a classic style body, I highly recommend checking out the PRS Singlecut SE guitars. It works well for both classic and modern sounds and looks great to boot!

Guitar World has recently posted a video tour of John 5 discussing his collection of vintage guitars, mostly consisting of vintage Telecasters. Looking at vintage guitars is fascinating to me, and John 5 has a great collection, including an almost mint 1953 blond Telecaster and a mint 1954 Blackguard Esquire.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Fender Jazzmaster:

Fender unveiled its Jazzmaster guitar in 1958, intending to score a one-two punch with an instrument that would be the company’s top-of-the line successor to the Stratocaster guitar and appeal to serious jazz guitarists, a class of musician that had eluded Fender’s widening reach. Although it succeeded on neither count, the distinctive Jazzmaster nonetheless surprised everybody by reaching widespread success in some unexpected arenas.

To celebrate the anniversary, Fender is throwing the Jazzmaster a party on September 12, 2008, at New York’s famous Knitting Factory nightclub. The party will feature a concert with Jazzmaster guitarists Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., Nels Cline of Wilco, and Tom Verlaine of Television.