by Alissa Ordabai
– Sr. Columnist —
While Malmsteen’s been sharing jokes and smiles with fans at the Seymour Duncan booth, Tal Wilkenfeld had a huge line of people lining up to meet her at the EBS stand, where she took over from Billy Sheehan, who was there theday before. Wilkenfeld — who hit global fame after playing bass on the now-legendary Jeff Beck’s Live at Ronnie Scott’s CD and DVD — uses EBS amps and EBS OctaBass. OctaBass is an analog octave divider, which creates a single-note one octave below the pitch of the played note. The best thing about it is the incredibly fast tracking circuitry that lets you play at the speed you want. It adds extra dimension to bass solos when sub-notes are mixed with the original note. Some say it makes the best impression when played on the higher frets, but it also works well with distortion. Just remember to keep it before the drive in the signal chain.
Musicians who played; however, got more attention than those who didn’t. The ESP room on Level 2 of the Convention Center was jam-packed for performances by Gary Holt (of Exodus and Slayer fame) and Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy). This year, Gary Holt signature ESP comes painted with his own blood, courtesy of surrealist artist Vincent Castiglia. According to blabbermouth.net, the blood was drawn from Holt backstage after a Slayer show in Long Island, N.Y., where Castglia collected 18 vials, which he used on the guitar. As Jimi Hendrix used to say, “The world is nothing but a big gimmick, isn’t it?”
Marco Mendoza delivered a ruggedly funky performance on Saturday — full of soulful, expansive Classic Rock solos on a five-string ESP bass. His ESP signature bass MM-4 (dark see-through green sunburst), has been upgraded to MM-4FM with EMG X-Series pickups and Hipshot drop tuner. MM4FM has a solid, double-cut alder body with a flamed maple top. A maple/walnut 21-fret neck is bolted to the body. Although a brilliant professional instrument, it is by no means the only ESP bass Mendoza is capable of enjoying. The five-string ESP Mendoza played that day was throwing in an extended range, extra fun and allowed him to play chords that, at times, were indistinguishable from a baritone guitar.
Max Cavalera’s LTD MAX-200 RPR also has gone through some changes this year. It now has a new bevel-edged body shape, but super-high output ESP Design humbuckers remain in place and continue to produce a brutally barbarous sound. The body is basswood and the bolt-on neck is maple topped with 22-fret rosewood fingerboards. Extra jumbo frets, 1.65-inch molded nut and 13.77-inch radius are standard LTD fingerboard features. ESP-Designed LH-150 humbuckers in the bridge and neck positions are passive, but produce an infernal growl.
Cavalera and entourage were a prominent NAMM presence on Friday, setting up a temporary camp at the S.I.T. Strings booth and signing autographs for an endless line of fans. Looking healthy, upbeat and on the ball, Cavalera now seems to find himself in a much better place than at the end of the last decade. He came through genuinely interested and moved to hear stories from fans who approached to talk, and his wife and manager, Gloria, looked happily busy helping manage the endless stream of people wanting to meet her husband.
Ibanez, which this year celebrates the 25 anniversary of Steve Vai’s seminal album Passion and Warfare, has released the Universe limited edition guitar in three different finishes. Vai was seen at the Ibanez booth on Saturday before making way to the Boss room on the 3rd floor to demo Waza amplifiers and his new Legacy Tone Capsule.
The Legacy Tone Capsule is a voicing circuit for the Boss Wasa amp, which Vai and Boss engineers developed together. The amp provides four independent channels, custom voicing options via “tone capsules” that re-voice tube characteristics of the Waza amp. The goal was for “tube logic” technology to modify the tone to produce Vai’s signature sounds. And the result sounded convincing — from glossy sustained tones to
melting shimmers. Although it would perhaps impress even more if demoed by someone other than Vai himself. After all, the tone is all in the fingers, as even school children know these days.
Kiko Loureiro, who has just seen his first release with Megadeth — the critically acclaimed 13-track magnum opus Dystopia — go to the top of metal charts, also stopped by the Ibanez booth at the same time as Vai and was promptly set upon by fans. When Hardrock Haven caught up with Loureiro at last year’s winter NAMM, he was able to navigate the show floor with barely as much as a nod from a few guitar journalists. This time around fan attention was running thick but still not as much as Vai, who practically was mobbed at the Ibanez booth.
