If you are buying a $20,000 aged Blackie guitar, I doubt you are planning on playing it at gigs and jams. One thing is for sure, you aren’t going to want to stick it into a case in the back of your attic or closet. I know you’ll want to flaunt your excessive spending to all of your friends and family. Who wouldn’t?

That would be the entry cue for Great Case Cabinet Company. They build sealed glass wall cases that provide a controlled humidity environment for your sensitive instruments. In all seriousness I hate storing my guitar in it’s case. I like to have it displayed out in the open where it can call me from across the room to play it.

The company makes a range of wall cases for acoustic and electric guitars, violins, harps, mandolins, and whatever else you might want to stick in there. If need be they will also make you a custom case to your own specifications. I know a few people who have hanging guitar mounts for their wall. Well why not have a humidified case to go around that? It’ll be like your guitar never left the guitar store.

Like I said, the cases come in a few different standard sizes, but the company does take custom orders. They offer a selection of woods, finishes, fabrics, hinges, and latches with pricing that ranges from $425USD to $1125USD and up for custom jobs.

[Via Harmony Central]

Gibson’s marketing department always seems to be a few steps behind, but they have finally updated the Gibson Custom website with details about the Zakk Wylde custom Flying V guitar.

There aren’t really any more details beyond what was known before, but they have release a [huge ass] 6MB 2 page PDF that displays it all in one inconveniently large package. Here is the little marketing writeup from the PDF:

THE CUSTOM SHOP DIFFERENCE
It burns in the heart of every player who purchases
a Gibson Custom Shop guitar… and it burns in the
heart of every employee who helps build our
world-class instruments.

We vow to continue infusing every instrument that
passes through our doors with that same passion.
It’s what makes our guitars the best.

From initial wood selection to final assembly, we
sweat the details so that when you pick up your
guitar, your dream, it exceeds every expectation
you could possibly have.

For 2007, we will continue to strive for excellence,
remain faithful to our history, and never lose sight
of our goal to build the fi nest guitars in the world.
Pick one up for yourself. Feel the passion that we
put into our guitars and release yours.

From what I can see they are still only making 100 of these bad boys. This is guaranteed to be a Gibson Vintage in about 50 years.

[Via Electric Guitar Review]

I am going to go on a bit of a rant right now and just toss this out there. Can someone please tell me what the appeal of a replica guitar is? Ok, so signature guitars are one thing. You want to sound as close to your guitar idol as humanly possible, so you buy all of their gear including their brand new INSERT GUITAR MANUFACTURER HERE Signature guitar. But I just don’t get where guitar makers are finding a market for all of these replica guitars complete with every scuff, stain, and scratch of the original.

The first one I saw was ESP’s James Hetfield Truckster. It comes complete with the same wear marks that are found on James’ original. Ok… sort of a cool idea, I’ll dig it. Then I came across Dean’s Dimebag Darrell Dean from Hell ML replica. Again… ok, even though I have issues with Dean taking advantage of Dime’s now legend status to sell guitars after his untimely death (RIP Dime).

Then the big announcement at NAMM was Eddie Van Halen worked out a deal with Fender to produce a limited number of exact replicas of his Frankenstrat guitar. Now… I don’t think I need to point out the obvious, but I will anyway. The original wasn’t even a Fender. In fact it said Charvel right on the headstock. So is fender going to go as far as to find the same original parts that went into making the original Frankenstrat? I really don’t think so. Never the less, they will sell for thousands of dollars.

Even as I write this I came across this Gibson Custom Limited Run Zakk Wylde Bullseye Aged Les Paul. Again, who wants to pay $7,999USD for scuffed up replica?

Gibson has released their second Guitar of the Week and man is it stunning. Gibson announced the Les Paul Classic Antique at this years NAMM Gibson has been making it for years. Look at the amazing finish on this guitar. Gibson calls it Fireburst and I think it is just freaking amazing.

Like I said the guitar is a run of the mill Classic Antique complete with ‘57 humbuckers, ’60s slim taper profile, rosewood fingerboard, and antique binding. The Les Paul is no different from others keeping the 3-way pickup toggle switch and volume/tone controls in their standard positions.

Obviously we can’t expect Gibson to be putting out a totally unique Custom each week, but I hope we get to see some more variations from their standard product lineup in the future. Again though, I am all about this finish. I think it’s stunning.

Every Tuesday every week Gibson plans to announce a new limited edition guitar that will only be available for that week. They are calling the program Gibson Guitar of the Week. A maximum of 400 of each model will be made and after that, there will be no more.

The first model to come out is the SG Supreme Bass. Interesting that they choose to do a bass for the first “Guitar of the Week”. I’ll be keeping up with the guitars that come out of this program.

Well, it’s that time of year again and NAMM Show has come and gone…. and I missed again. It’s not like I missed the actual show, because I’m not a NAMM member, but I did miss all the fresh news about products and such.

For those of you not in the loop, NAMM used to stand for “National Association of Music Merchants”. These days they have dropped the full name and just go by the acronym. Basically they are a global organization for the musical equipment industry. Each year they hold a trade show that exhibits all the great new music making products from every company. It is not open to the public, you have to be a NAMM member to attend and to be a NAMM member you have to make, buy, and/or sell musical instruments and products. Right now I am just playing a little catch-up, so lets see what I can find about this years show.

On the official NAMM Show website they have a recap of each day including pictures.

Play Guitar Now has a load of great pictures from each day of the show.

Cary at Electric Guitar Review linked to another NAMM 2007 picture gallery at Modern Guitars Magazine that also has a whole bunch of great shots.

Line 6 unveiled the Floor POD Plus basically combining a POD 2.0 with a huge list of premium effects in a portable stomp box floor set.

Gibson announced 11 new guitar models including the digital HD.6X-Pro. Modern Guitars Magazine has all of the details.

Fender showed off the VG Stratocaster, a modeling guitar. It is equipped with a digital pickup, a modeling dial with 37 different models, and a tuning knob that allows you to select from 5 alternate tunings.

Eddie Van Halen and Fender announced a signature EVH Frankenstein replica. The replicas play like a dream but physically feature every nick and mark the original has.

Man, I could probably go all day reading up on all the great stuff to come out of the show… I guess I still have a lot of reading to do.

A great gift that I received for Christmas when I was just starting to play guitar was a chromatic tuner. I had taught myself how to tune the guitar by ear, but my hear wasn’t really trained that well. So even though I tuned my guitar it was generally off. A chromatic tuner was an excellent gift because it helped me learn songs easier by having a guitar that sounded like it was supposed to.

A chromatic tuner has a lot of other uses, like introducing you to alternate tunings and lower tunings like drop d and half or full step down.

The Korg GT-3 digital guitar tuners are a great buy, but pretty much any chromatic tuner will do.
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