The Axe Palace 2012 NAMM SS.ORG Picstory Spectacular + BRJ Factory Tour Adventure!)

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Introduction

I'm pumped to present to you all my 4th Annual Sevenstring.org NAMM Picstory! This 2012 edition is going to be the most epic yet! There is a ton of content from the NAMM show itself, as well as some of the other fun adventures we got ourselves into. There will be videos this time too! Be sure to grab a drink and check it out. Enjoy!

Here is a summary of what you will find in the posts below:

1) A plethora of NAMM Photos from: Mayones, Ibanez, Brunetti, Carvin, Diezel, DiMarzio, ENGL, Paul Reed Smith, ESP, Orange, Flaxwood, James Trussart, Marshall, Parker, Rivera, Rocktron, Strictly 7, Schecter, Vigier, BC Rich, and others. Please be aware companies such as Suhr, Mesa/Boogie, Caparison, G&L, and others chose not to exhibit at this year's show, otherwise they would have been featured too. Included will be descriptions of some of the new products and other observations.

2) Photos and videos from our amazing roadtrip out to Hesperia to visit Bernie Rico Jr's factory. Lots of guitar content and other hijinks.

3) Random nonsense and fun things from our trip.


The Trip

This year I flew out to NAMM with my buddies Leo and Victor, the latter of which is the guitar tech here at the Axe Palace as well as a product rep for Line 6. Neither of them have ever been to NAMM before, so it was fun showing them around and watching them experience it for the first time. Of course, it's always more fun traveling with good friends too!

Here are a few shots I took while on board Virgin America airlines. These were taken while flying over the Utah/Colorado area. It looks like an alien planet down there. It's crazy how many diverse landscapes there are in America. One minute you see forests and mountains, then barren Martian landscapes like this.

After landing at Los Angeles' LAX airport, we hit up Enterprise rent-a-car to pick up whatever cheap car we had reserved. When we got there, they offered us to upgrade to this beautiful 2012 Chrysler 300 for only $10 more a day. We took one look at this thing, then looked at the Shitbox we had reserved, and off we were!

After that we headed to Anaheim which is where the convention is held each year. We grabbed some food at a cool pizza joint down the street from NAMM. Saw a lot of familiar faces and had a nice time.

After grabbing some food we unwound at the Hilton Garden Inn for a bit before going out later that night. Here we are enjoying the brilliant comedian David Cross on my laptop. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, he's most famous for his old HBO show "Mr. Show With Bob & David", the sitcom "Arrested Development", and his current show "The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret". One of my favorite stand-up comedians of all time, highly recommended!!

Victor brought his classical guitar, which he got from Agile/Rondo Music for like $200. We were all really impressed by the tone and quality for such a cheap instrument. I have to tip my hat to Agile for pulling that off so frequently. Both Leo and Victor are really skilled at classical guitar, but I can't play those for SHIT. Necks are just way too thick. They make a Gibson 50's neck feel like an Ibanez.

Later that evening we hit up a cool local spot in Anaheim called The Garden Walk. I mentioned it in last year's thread. Just an ultra-modern, beautiful outdoor mall complex with all kinds of restaurants, bars, shops, movie theaters, etc. They have an awesome futuristic bowling alley there where beautiful women bring you beer while you duke it out in the lanes. Looks like something out of Akira or something. Anyways Victor demolished both of us in a drunken fury of strikes. He joked today back at the shop while working on a tough customer job that he should quit and become a professional bowler. Dude could not miss all night.

After that it was time for some PF Chang's and more beer. I've always heard good things but have never been. Up here in the Boston/New York region have the best chinese food in the country, so I never hit up the chains, but it was really good. Much respect!

Sadly not all was fun and games, as after the first night of NAMM our splendid vehicle got towed. Like an idiot, I thought I'd try to be clever and save money by parking at a shopping outlet that was around the corner from the NAMM Show. When we returned from the first day of the show, we found our car missing. It took a few hours to get the car back, and unfortunately we missed out on the complimentary Morton's Steakhouse dinner that ESP Guitars was treating us.

At least the tow truck driver provided some entertainment with his drug-induced hijinks. Pretty amusing character. It took the sting of the heinous $200 fee a little bit. I thought it was hilarious he had business cards to give us, as if anyone plans to get towed. I took his card and vowed I'd come to him first for my "car towing needs". He reminded me of the "two chicks at the same time, man" guy from the movie Office Space.

We made up for missing out on Morton's the night before by hitting up a fucking amazing restaurant around the corner from NAMM, called Tony Romas. Highly recommended to anyone traveling to Orange County!

On Sunday many of us sports fans were glued to the tv watching the NFL Playoff games, especially the New England Patriots vs. Baltimore Ravens game. Being a pretty diehard Pats fan, I ended up skipping NAMM that day to go to a local sports bar to watch the game. Apparently inside the NAMM show there were hundreds of people watching the game as well. Victor managed to capture the Raven's epic moment of failure as it happened. LACES OUT BITCHES!



Anyways, now on to the NAMM show and the BRJ factory visit....!


The NAMM Show: Guitars

Once again the show was a lot of fun. We discovered amazing new guitars and amps we had never been able to try before, socialized with friends in the industry, and of course secured some new goodies for my store.

On the guitar side, we were all really blown away by the Mayones guitars from Poland. I had meant to seek them out last year but missed out. They were all incredibly beautiful and had ridiculously comfortable necks. They're pretty expensive but they seem worth it! They're works of art. We're not a dealer for them or anything, just calling it like I see it!

 

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As always the Vigier stuff was outstanding. They had a new 7-string model called the Excalibur Special 7, which is similar to the Supra 7 but also features a sweet flame top and a nifty killswitch. They also introduced an updated version of their fretless "Surfretter" guitar, similar to the one Guthrie Govan plans. They have scrapped the delta-metal material and have gone with a new stainless-steel style fingerboard. Patrice Vigier claims the new fingerboard material is more resistant to corrosion and produces a better tone. They had a sweet transparent white ash model there which is pictured below, along with the aforementioned 7-string.

Speaking of 7-strings, one of the highlights of the show for me was the unveiling of the Parker 7-string model. As a long-time Parker fan, I was looking forward to this day for a long time! While sadly it is the Dragonfly shape and not the traditional Fly shape, I was encouraged that it still had all the classic Parker elements (carbon fiber board/exoskelton, set-thru construction, piezos, Sperzels, etc). It has a mahogany body and neck, with Seymour Duncan pickups and it is a USA model.

Also of note in the extended range world was the new Carvin 8-string. As always it appeared to be a quality build, but the neck did seem a bit thicker than I would have liked. I might have been spoiled by the paper-thin Mayones necks however! They also had a beautiful purple DC727 on display that was insane. Apparently they came out with some new amps too but I'm not too familiar with those, nonetheless I snapped some pictures for you Carvin fans out there.

The ESP booth was probably the busiest we witnessed all show long. They introduced a ton of new signature models, new colors/configurations on existing models, etc. My favorites were the new finishes on the Horizon and Eclipse models, especially "Reindeer Blue", "Black Aqua", "Red Lava", and "Mystic Black". Another cool thing is that you can now get each model either fixed/floyd as well as EMG/Duncans. They also added a version of the Horizon with the "Forest" headstock, an option previously only available in Japan. And lastly of note was the Horizon NT-7 with Floyd Rose, sure to be a popular option.

ESP also had flurry of new LTD signature model 7-strings, including those from all three members of Whitechapel, a Buzz McGrath silverburst model, a Suicide Silence model, and other goodies.

 

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Ibanez had some interesting new items this year, including the Meshuggah signature model 8-string, two limited edition J-Custom RG 7-strings, and some very elegant Prestige Saber models. Victor is a big Ibanez fan and was stoked that the J-Custom 7-strings were finally being made available to the USA.

Of course, not everything Ibanez brought along did much for us. Their new line of "extreme" shape guitars left a lot to be desired, for example. I feel they should leave that kind of cheese to the likes of BC Rich or Dean, but thats just me. The new Mick Thomson signature model was especially difficult to look at. I thought his last Ibanez signature model was pretty cool.

 

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An interesting brand of guitars I've never seen before was the James Trussart customs. They are pretty unique tele and strat designs but with unique aged/distressed looks to them. They had one guitar that looked to be made of gold that was pretty cool. I didn't get a chance to plug one in, but I snapped a few pics anyways.

***WAIT A MINUTE? SINBAD IS HERE? HAH!***

Anyways, off we went to the Schecter booth! They had some very cool new items, such as the Jeff Loomis 6-string model, Blackjack models with Sustainiac pickups from the factory, and what appeared to be a Hellraiser baritone that is tuned down like an 8-string. On the downside, it appears Schecter has ripped off BRJ's "Vixen" design with their new Jeff Loomis V. I can't say I'm a fan of this version of the shape, but to each their own.

Despite all that, I was impressed by Schecter's offerings this year. They seemed to have slimmed down their 7-string neck profiles which is the only reason I never liked them in the past. I also found their Chris Garza tele 7-string model pretty awesome. Dig the new PT series too.

My visit to Paul Reed Smith's booth was pretty brief this year. Most of their new models were introduced a few months ago and seeing as all my 6-strings are PRS, I'm kind of burnt out on them at the moment. Nonetheless they had their usual array of beautiful guitars on display, including this limited edition piece I'm pictured with below.

The one notable new model they came out with this year is the P22, which is basically a Custom 22 with a piezo system installed. This is their first solid-body model with piezos. The fellow demoing them for on-lookers was playing one with a rosewood neck through one of the PRS amplifiers and it sounded great.

Another priority for me for this year's show was to hook up with the fine folks of Strictly 7 guitars. Jim is a great guy and a fine luthier. I'm really happy to be working with him at last. They had their new "Solar 7" Ola signature models on display, really killer. I definitely think thats the best design they've come up with to date. They also had a prototype of Keith Merrow's signature model, which was cool. I was hoping to meet up with Keith at the show but unfortunately it didn't work out, he's an amazing player and engineer. Much respect!

I then made my usual visit to DiMarzio and spoke with my buddy Jeremy there. I was excited to check out the new DiMarzio PAF 8-string pickup. I am a firm believer that quality low output pickups can do wonders for uber low tunings, especially with tube amps. It's nice to see DiMarzio apparently thought so too.

Another cool new model they have is the "Dominion" pickups, which are the Lamb of God signatures. This one I didn't get to try, but Jeremy explained they were like if you tightened up a Tone Zone. Sounds good to me as I think the 6-string Tone Zone is the very best pickup they have to offer.

And finally, a quick peak at the BC Rich booth. They didn't seem to bring much to this year's show. Just looked like the usual stuff. I saw zero USA models this year as well. Ahh well, at least Leo got to meet Kerry King!

 

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The NAMM Show: Amplifiers

The highlight of the show for all of us on the amp side was the Brunetti amplifiers from Italy. We were invited them prior to the show to come check out their booth. The first thing we noticed when we pulled up was they had a bunch of purple amps on display. Seeing as Victor and I have four purple guitars between the two of us, this obviously peaked our interest! But when Marco Brunetti had me plug in to his amps, shit got serious. These were flat-out the best sounding amps we played at the show. Absolutely amazing! Liquidy, responsive lead tones and absolutely brutal rhythm tones -- all with a completely unique sound and feel. They had some crazy features too. For example one model comes with a built-in 1U rack space and lets you blend EL34 and EL84 tubes. Another model has a smart "depth" control, where when you crank it up to high levels, the presence is automatically boosted to compensate.

Brunettis are awesome.

Another cool thing about this booth is they had a custom 7-string built by Origin Guitars there. It's what I used to demo several of Brunetti's amps and I loved it. It turns out that guitar was built by Billy Jerich, who I've known from sevenstring.org for about 5 years now. I honestly had no idea that was his company. He called me up during NAMM and told me after I had mentioned it on our Facebook page. His stuff is amazing, highly recommended! We were all really impressed.

Next up was a trip to the ENGL booth to check out their new "Retro Tube 100" amplifier head and cabinet. They told me it was designed to be a more organic, warm, classic style amplifier. The funny thing is, while they accomplished that, its channel 2 still delivered the usua ENGL mega high-gain performance. I must admit, I am a complete ENGL addict these days, which is kind of ironic considering I used to hate them when my only experience was the Powerball (which I still hate). I rock an Invader 100 live these days and have never been happier.

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal was there rocking out to some ENGLs as well. That dude can REALLY play. Seems to be a pretty humble guy as well.

Up next was a visit with the wonderful people of Rivera amplification. I've said it before and I'll say it again: these are some of the coolest guys I know in the industry. Great people all around. Always a pleasure to see Paul Jr, Paul Sr, and Rich. I didn't see anything too new from them on the amp side this year, but I did notice they had a crazy new chorus pedal that has a wet-dry-wet 3-way stereo setup. He explained the benefits of it and Mark Tremonti was there gushing over it, but I'm not really enough of an effects guy to really get it. Sounded cool though!

For those of you new to Rivera, one of their lesser-known amps that is absolutely killer is their "Venus 5" model. Similar to the Diezel Schmidt, it's a class A amplifier that actually packs some serious high-gain punch to go along with obviously sparkling clean tones. Try one out at your local shop if you ever get a chance.

Next up I had a chance to meet up with Steven Fryette of Fryette Amplification (formerly VHT). Steve decided not to exhibit at NAMM this year, but wanted to meet up with me to discuss some things. One major new item coming out that Axe-FX fans like myself will be excited about is their new "LXII" poweramp. Steven designed it with Axe-FX/Line6 fans in mind. It is a stereo 40W poweramp (with a mono 80W mode available), featuring 6L6 power tubes, a sleek 1U rack space design, a simple layout, and a voicing switch that lets you choose from flat response (for use with digital modelers) or colored (for use with traditional tube preamps). This is something I've known about being in the works for about a year now, and now I believe I can finally say something about it. It should be coming out in March or so, at a lower price than the other Fryette poweramps.

Stevie is a really great guy and someone I've admired for a long, long time. He is an evil genius and extremely passionate about what he does, I really enjoyed soaking in his knowledge.

Next I found myself checking out some Orange goodness at their booth. I've never really sat down and played an Orange amp for any length of time, but I always hear good things. Most people seem to say they're better rock amps than metal, but that can be cool. Some of the best metal tones are done by boosting rock amps. The Thunderverb is the only one I played, and while it wasn't my thing, it definitely had a pretty rippin' tone!

 

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And finally, to the Diezel booth where I spent most of my time at NAMM this year. As many of you know Diezel is one of our signature brands and also some of our favorite amps to play here at the shop when demoing guitars for people. Peter Stapfer of Diezel has treated me wonderfully over the years and it was nice spending some time with him for a while and hearing some of his stories. I ended up taking a couple Herbert MK2s and VH4s home from the show, which is always fun.

Nothing too much new here. The only newish amp they had at the show is their HAGEN model, which is to my ears is similar to the VH4 but slightly more modern. It has what you'd expect from a Diezel, except its channel 2 which is insanely awesome and unique sounding. Like a vox on steroids. I also got to spend time playing their SCHMIDT head, which is the only model I don't have hands on experience with. Much like the Rivera Venus 5 I mentioned earlier, I was really surprised by how epic its high-gain performance was given its a 35W Class A head. Killer killer amp!

Oh, I also saw this Marshall Black Label Society amp hanging about. There were loads of grizzled biker-gang dudes floating around it, so I guess it must sound pretty Zakk-tastic! Another interesting thing I didn't realize, is that Marshall USA is now being run by US Music Corporation (Washburn, Parker, Randal, etc). They had been distributed by Korg forever. I guess I missed that memo!

 

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The Bernie Rico Jr Factory Tour Roadtrip

And now for the true highlight of the entire week for all three of us: a trip out to Hesperia to finally see my friend and legendary guitar luthier Bernie Rico Jr! This was a huge honor for me to meet him finally. As many of you sevenstring.org veterans know, I've been playing his guitars for over a decade now; long before the Axe Palace was ever conceived. He was the very first person I called when I started up and we've been working together ever since. I received my sixth custom guitar from him last month (the blood red Diva 7), and it is honestly the best yet!

To make the trip extra exciting, Rico is hooking up my tech Victor on a custom Hesperian Slant Top 7 and he was really pumped to get to sit down with him in person and hash things out. A fun moment was when Bernie nonchalantly said to Victor "hey, go ahead and pick out the woods you want". Victor lit up and was like "are you fucking serious?". He went and selected the piece of rosewood he's using for the neck, the flame top, and the Birdseye maple board. It was awesome, because they all looked great but he got to pick the ones he thought looked the very best. That's got to be something anyone ordering a custom guitar wishes they could do. I felt super happy for him, being his first custom and all!

After we arrived and greeted Bernie, he gave us a tour of his facility. To say it was impressive would be a massive understatement. He had a zillion guitars there, in all various stages of development. All looked incredible and had the most insanely fast necks I've ever played. I got to see some of my customers in-progress guitars as well as some completed ones awaiting new homes. We were all in heaven as he'd bust out sick guitar after sick guitar. I think the most commonly used phrase throughout the day was "holy shit!"

After drooling over guitars for a while, all four of us went out for lunch at a nearby restaurant and had a great time. Bernie is a hilarious dude. He has a real acerbic sense of humor, always joking around and talking smack, in a good-natured way of course. At one point the restaurant was getting cold and Bernie wanted them to turn the heat up, so he says to the waiter "hey man, these three pussies over here are bitching about the cold, can you turn the heat up a bit?". We were all dying, who does that shit?

But despite all the wise-cracks, Bernie is the one of the most genuine and loyal guys I know. Apart from being one of the best builders in the world, he's also someone who I can trust that if a mistake is made, he'll always go the extra mile to make things right. I know he's had a few issues recently with the BFR guitars, which he acknowledged and spoke to us candidly about. All we can attest to is that each and every one of the nearly hundred guitars we saw there was flawless. At one point Victor was playing a 7-string from the BFR run and it was insane. Whoever gets that piece will be euphoric. Infinite sustain on that thing.

Spending an entire day at BRJ's shop was just an absolute honor, the most fun I've had in a long time. It was some straight-up Willy Wonka shit for us. Bernie has an infectious personality and was a great host. Thanks again man! Check out some videos and pics below of the whole day:

 

[geofreesun]

!!! the pix don't seem to be working for me...but this is gonna be such an epic post.

 

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It will work fine, all links have been tested, just hit refresh in a minute. The servers being overloaded at the moment it would seem! Theres a billion high-rez pics in this thread so its understandable

 

[themike]

Dude, amazing thread! I love the stories that accompany everything!

Also props to your boy for the Acaro shirt haha

Also - that is a LOT of BRJ guitars in frame compared to the usual photos hahah

 

[ROAR]

hahahah that purple and green synyster gates model rules on the dumbest level

 

[zimbloth]

Dude, amazing thread! I love the stories that accompany everything!

Also props to your boy for the Acaro shirt haha

Also - that is a LOT of BRJ guitars in frame compared to the usual photos hahah

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it. Yeah Acaro is rad. We're buddies with them, my band plays shows with them often. Felipe and Chris are both wonderful guitar players and people.

There is a lot of BRJ photos because we spent the entire day there, whereas with random booths at NAMM it was just maybe 10-15 minutes

hahahah that purple and green synyster gates model rules on the dumbest level

Hah yeah I figured some of you out there might be entertained by that photo

 

[MikeHONCHO]

this thread. So many great new guitars and amps. I hate myself for not being there in person

 

[geofreesun]

yup all is good, thanks for the post! made my day for sure

 

[Archetype]

Hahah the Museum of Failure:

 

[DoomJazz]

Im like a little kid, skipping most of the words to stare at pictures...

 

[themike]

There is a lot of BRJ photos because we spent the entire day there, whereas with random booths at NAMM it was just maybe 10-15 minutes

haha I meant as compared to the BRJ thread were there are only like 2-3 guitars in each photo. Your photos put into perspective how much he works on at a time

 

[JPMike]

Amazing picstory!! Thanks for sharing all these amazing photos.

 

[Zado]

Very awesome picstory man,thank you so much!

I will never stop saying how awesome mayones booth seems to be and how disappointing schecter is compared to others...


I also really liked what you said about Brunetti amps: they are not my fave italian amps (masotti,LAA,brbs are even better to me),but since I'm italian too I'm very pleased you liked them!!

So sad no sign of a steavens custom amps booth...those woud have proly kicked major asses!On his site,bernard talked about being at hall D,but noone saw his flag it seems

 

[wyldweasil]

Great stuff, I'll have to make it out to the store soon.