Reinventing The Steel: Steve Vai 30 Years Of Ibanez |
|
|
|
|
Mar 1 2021, 02:33 AM
|
|
Steve Vai is a legendary player for good reason. What some folks may not know is that he had a hand in helping the guitar move forward in terms of design. Of course, there are many people and many builders/vendors who were also heading in roughly this same direction at the time. For clarity, let’s just look at the Vai/Ibby connection.
Steve Vai found the limitations of the STRAT/TELE/LES PAUL to be just a bit much and went to a small custom shop called PERFORMANCE GUITAR ( https://www.performanceguitar.com ) and had them build a guitar to his personal spec. This included -A 24 Fret Neck -A 5 Way Pickup Switch that allowed for splitting the Humbuckers into single coils -Deep Cutaways to allow high fret access -A Free Floating whammy bar setup -Double Locking Trem The result was a very early prototype of what would later become the “Super Strat”. At the time, several companies had reached out to Vai for him to endorse their instruments. He sent them back the specs that he had come up with when he built his super and waited for the results. He was sent several guitars with his name on them and he didn’t really like any of them. Except of course, for the MAXXAS guitar sent by Ibanez. This guitar had several of the things Steve was looking for. Here is a picture of what it looked like.  It was not quite what he wanted, but it was closer than any of the other guitar companies had managed so far. So he set up a meeting with Ibanez and from those meetings, came the now legendary JEM 777 guitar. Steve had sent his prototype made at Performance Guitar to the Ibanez design team as inspiration for the next version of his Signature Guitar from Ibanez. They started to build his new “Dream Guitar” and they sent him the first Jem 777. It featured  The Same 5 Way Switch from his Prototype The Floating Bridge with a “Tiger Claw” routing to allow the trem to be pulled sharp without hitting the body of the guitar. The Dual Humbucker/Middle Single Coil Pickup Layout Single Tone Knob Locking Trem New Monkey Grip (to make the guitar visually distinct) Frets 21-24 are Scalloped 19MM “Jem” Neck Profile (Interesting to note that this neck is not as thin as the original Wizard neck (17mm) which was used on the “entry” level version of the Jem which was branded as the RG550. The Jem 777 became the Steve Vai Signature Model which was shared with the word in 1987 during the Summer NAMM show. Only Seven hundred and seventy seven units of the Green Vai Signature Model were made. So right away it had some rarity. At the time, Vai was playing with David Lee Roth. Guitar fans from all over the world knew who Steve was and he was mobbed at NAMM. The demand for this guitar was intense. Ibanez realized that they would need to make an entry level version of this guitar as well with a lower price point. To wit, the RG550 was born. Also, the RG570 and RG560, which were slight variations on the theme. The Super Strat took off quickly and began to re write the rules of what a lead guitar was. The series was wildly successful. To this day, Ibanez fans still seek out the original Jem and the RG5XX series. His influence helped to shape the entire industry and it’s impact is felt to this day. Hats off to Mr Vai. This video was very helpful in writing this article *Here is Ben with a VAI lesson https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Vai-olation-II-Lesson/ This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Aug 4 2021, 11:53 PM |
 |
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 1 2021, 07:28 AM
|
|
I am curious to see the guitars the other companies have sent to Steve Vai before joining Ibanez.
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
1 User(s) are reading this topic (1 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:
