The Yamaha Image Series was launched in 1988 and designed by Martyn Booth in the UK who left Yamaha in 1990 and now designs his own custom guitars. Booth once worked for Gibson when they introduced the solidbody ES-335-S. Booth didn't like the Gibson ES-335-S and worked on his won version of it which reemerged when he worked for Yamaha in 1987. Yamaha was looking for a high-...
The story of the ESP Mirage and latter M-I, M-II and M-III series started in the mid 80's. The ESP 1984 catalog featured four Mirage guitar models with dinky bodies based on ESP's ST model and that were part of the then called ESP 600 series. The ESP Mirage Standard, the...
Back in the day (we're talking the nineties) my guitar teacher used to have a red Jackson guitar. It looked uber modern and had the pointy headstock and all. The heel was so smooth because of the neck-through construction. I don't know wether my teacher had a USA or an import Jackson. But I remember that guitar very clearly, especially since I've been collecting some information on the...
The Charvel Fusion Series is one of the series to succeed the Charvel Model Series. This particular series featured guitars with a shorter scale (24.75"), dinky bodies and the toothpaste logo. Like the Charvel Classic, Contemporary and...
Just like the Charvel Classic Series, the Charvel Professional Series can be seen as the continuation of the Charvel Model Series and the forerunner of the Jackson Professional Series. The series were...
After the Charvel Model Series were discontinued in late 1988. The Chushin Gakki factory in Japan produced the Charvel Classic Series, Charvel Contemporary Series, Charvel Fusion Series and the Charvel...
A little while ago I wrote a blog called "Washburn Mercury Series Part I" and after that the post "Washburn Mercury Series Part II". in those posts the focus was more on the US made guitars. This time the focus will be more on the higher end import guitars. The...
A little while ago I wrote a blog called "Washburn Mercury Series Part I" in that post the focus was more on the US made guitars with Wilkinson tremolos. This time we will finish the list of the US made guitars. There were some with Floyd Rose tremolos, some even with Tune-o-matic bridges and tailpieces. Some others didn't even...
One guitar that's on my bucket list still is the Paul Reed Smith Custom 24. But the first time I saw this guitar at a music expo, I'm not sure if it even was a PRS or a Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro. I was just starting to play guitar and I still couldn't distinguish between them. Even their ads were similar in the guitar magazines. Years later I read in...
The original Peavey Tracer model was introduced in 1988. The models in the Peavey Tracer Series that came after the first model were made to compete with the popular Charvel/Jackson, Ibanez and Kramer guitars in the hard-rock genre. The main features are poplar bodies, an (allegedly) Schaller 2 in 1 humbucking pickup and bilaminated rock maple necks using...
The Hamer Mirage series was introduced in 1994 and were upscale double cutaway models but never really caught on like PRS. They only produced a total number of 864 guitars. That's a shame because they seem like great instruments. The series started of with the Mirage I (GMIR I) in 1994 of which only 344 were produced. A year later the Mirage II (GMIR II) was introduced of...
In the mid 1980's Jackson Charvel Guitars was making a name for itself for delivering great custom built guitars where the amount of options were staggering. Essentially, each California-produced Charvel guitar was a hand-built custom instrument. The success of Jackson Charvel led to the establishment mass production of the more popular configurations. Grover Jackson licensed...
In the late eighties and early nineties Rich Lasner was a Senior Guitar Designer at Yamaha. Together with Leo Knapp who was a guitar builder and Ken Dapron he formed Yamaha Guitar Development in North Hollywood. They worked with Jackie Minakuchi who worked for Yamaha in Japan who had a staff of 4-5 men to translate the designs, that Lasner did on paper, to the computer. To test the...
If you think about a Yamaha Pacifica, you think about a Stratocaster copy with a traditional tremolo and an HSS pickup configuration. The Yamaha Pacifica 112 introduced in 1994 is one of the most popular guitars for beginners and is often recommended by guitar teachers to their students because of its versatility. The earlier Yamaha Pacificas, developed by Rich Lasner however...
On this website I tend to not focus on the two big most known guitar brands. But if I do feature guitars of these brands they have to be lesser known models of these brands. Well, today I'm writing about the Gibson M Series guitars. Another guitar model from the nineties, the time I first got introduced to guitars. So somewhere in my memory I still remember reading about or...
The Ibanez Radius series or "R series" was first launched in 1987 with the introduction of the Ibanez 540R where the R stands for Radius. Originally the Ibanez 540R together with the Ibanez 540S (Saber) and the Ibanez 540P (Power) were part of the Roadstar (II)Pro 540 series....
As far as I remember I have always associated the Ibanez RG with Floyd Rose like tremolos. That's why I like to highlight the RG's featuring non Floyd Rose type tremolos/bridges. In earlier posts I've already highlighted the Ibanez RT series and also Ibanez' Andy Timmons signature...
A few decades ago when I was looking to buy my first guitar I went to many guitar stores and read through many guitar magazines. My young and susceptible brain was bombarded with many advertisements and catalogs of many brands. And the rule is, the brands that spend more on advertising are positioned better in the psyche of the target audience. So the brands that stuck with me from that time...
The last time I was searching for information about the Ibanez RT series I came accross an Ibanez brochure where this guitarist, Andy Timmons, was holding the...
While browsing and reading about guitars I came across the story of the Ibanez Fireman. The story goes that Paul Gilbert played around with some pictures of an Ibanez Iceman in photoshop and flipped it around, reversed the headstock and added a cutaway. The Ibanez LA Custom Shop made this guitar for him equipped with 3 hum cancelling single coil pickups that were mounted at an angle....
I'm still on a quest for a new strat-like guitar and since my first guitar was the Yamaha RGX 612A, another Yamaha line, the Pacifica series came to my attention. I read some good stuff on the internet about Yamaha Pacificas, they have quite the reputation of being solid guitars for a good price. That's also the reason many guitar teachers...
Last year I bought a Takamine GJ72CE Electric Acoustic guitar. A purchase that I'm quite happy with. I like the way it plays, the way it sounds and the way it looks. The form, the materials and the headstock. I love that the strings stay parallel from the nut to the tuners. Takamine is well known for their electric acoustic guitars. Not many people know that they also made a few solid bodied...
The guitar that's been on my wish list for a very long time is the Paul Reed Smith Custom 24. I find PRS guitars very beautifully designed and love the lines and curves on PRS guitars. Since the PRS Custom 24 is at the core of what started it all for Paul Reed Smith it's the PRS that's been on my list. But lately I'm more into stratlike guitars, and am looking to buy a strat or strat...
When I started out learning to play the guitar, my guitar teacher had this poster of a long haired glamrocker with a pink guitar. I remembered that poster because the guitar in it had a very distinct form. You could recognize it from far away. Years later I learned that the guitarist on that poster was...