Winter NAMM 2017: A Guitar Lover's Wonderland

NAMM, the annual event where manufacturers show their wares to retailers and the media, rarely disappoints. In addition to new and updated products, there are often pieces that are made to attract attention. This custom creation by luthier Andy Manson attracted plenty.

Martin Guitars partnered with Dwight Yoakam for the country superstar’s new signature model, the Dwight Yoakam DD 28. This guitar features a Sitka Spruce top, East Indian Rosewood back and sides and a low profile neck as per the artist’s preference.

Eastman Guitar debuted a new vintage-inspired guitar that may find favor with the rockabilly crowd. The T58/v features a carved spruce top, TV Jones Filtertron pickups, Bigsby vibrato and a Antique Varnish finish.

Eastman Guitar debuted a new vintage-inspired guitar that may find favor with the rockabilly crowd. The T58/v features a carved spruce top, TV Jones Filtertron pickups, Bigsby vibrato and a Antique Varnish finish.

The original Gizmotron was a device introduced in the 1970’s and was before it’s time. The new Gizmotron time has come. This mechanical device physically bows one or more strings for long, potentially infinite, sustaining lines or parts. Unlike the original, the new Gizmo does not require drilling holes into your guitar for installation.

NAMM is not just for instruments and gear. You can also see hardware, tools, wood and building supplies. Here is a colorful display of Richlite fingerboards. Ritelite, a sustainable product constructed of paper and resin is used by cutting edge luthiers and major manufacturers alike, including Gibson.

This Bourgeois Style 45 Dreadnought looks strong and bold. This guitar features Adirondack Spruce and Brazilian Rosewood. Like many manufacturers these days, Bourgeois is using torrefied woods. Torrefication is essentially baking the wood to change the molecular structure in a way similar to natural aging, reportedly resulting in instruments that sound and look like they were constructed years ago.

Avian guitars has a line of models each named after a different species of bird. Here is a pair of Skylarks: a non-cut and one with a functional modern scooped cutaway. Other features, of course, includes the unconventional sound holes on the upper bout.

A & F Drum Company out of Austin displayed several vintage style drums, including the rustic Royal Elite and the Black Club series shown here.

Winter NAMM is akin to the largest music store in the United States and provides opportunities to see gear that you are unlikely to see at your local retailer. Placid Audio displayed a line of copper finished microphones, including this very retro looking Copperphone Mini.

The Weber Black Ice F24-F is a mandocello that is nearly the size of a convention guitar. Of course, the spruce top is carved with a violin type arch and the F style body features the famous scroll on the bass side of the upper bout.

Epiphone has a long history of creating archtop top guitar that long precedes their acquisition by the Gibson Guitar Company. Their new Masterbilt Century Series pays tribute to that heritage with a modern twist: electronics designed to amplify the acoustic aspects of the archtop guitar. The Masterbilt Century Deluxe round hole is shown here.

The Masterbilt Century Deluxe Classic (f-hole model) is one of five new Epiphone guitars in the Century Collection. In addition to both round hole and f-hole models of the 17” wide Deluxe and 16” wide Zenith, there is a smaller body (about 14.75”) Olympic model.

Gibson’s Acoustic Division introduced a line of HP (high performance, perhaps?) guitars, including the HP 665 SB shown here. The body has a thinner, more comfortable 3.5” depth, the neck has a new profile and the fingerboard is flatter for ease of string bending. The top and body are made of conventional guitar materials (Sitka Spruce and Rosewood), while the fingerboard and bridge are made of Richlite. The electronics are the LR Baggs VCT pickup system.

New for 2017 is Gibson Custom is the Johnny A / Joe Bonamassa Spruce Top. The earliest versions of Gibson’s double neck guitars were spruce topped hollowbody instruments without f-holes. Joe Bonamassa’s own 1959 double neck guitar served as the inspiration of this variation of the maple-topped Johnny A Signature guitar.

Roland’s Boss Division demoed the Acoustic Singer Pro, an amplifier/portable PA geared for the singer/guitarist with the more coveted effects built in. The Acoustic Singer Pro features independent reverb for each channel, a looper, and an harmonizer that reads to appropriate harmony based off of the chords being played on the guitar. Each channel can be independently fed to a larger sound system.

Godin equipped a pair of their guitars with TV Jones Pickups and Bigsby vibrato units giving a little retro flare to their 5Th Avenue Uptown LTD (hollowbody) and the Montreal Premiere Supreme LTD (semi-hollow body, shown in the photo insert).

Tascam Track Factory Project is a complete (well, the video monitor and audio monitors are not included) audio production system designed to take the frustration and guesswork out of a DAW (Desktop Audio Workstation). The system includes a CPU with Windows 10 optimized for recording, a Tascam USB interface, microphone and headphones. Cakewalk Sonar Professional software pre-installed and pre-configured to make DAW recording more of a plug in and record system much like a portastudio.

Smaller builders and innovators show their wares at NAMM as well as the major manufacturers. Here is a close up of some the details of spade studded guitar from McSwain Guitars out of Portland, Oregon.

The Ibanez FRIZ7FEAHCSF 7-string guitar has an understated elegance that is in complete contrast to the instrument’s name. This model, new for 2017, has a standby “Killswitch” built into the guitar.

Here is a beauty of a instrument from Asher Guitars. Bill Asher is a California-based boutique builder who’s instruments have found favor with artists such as Jackson Browne, Beck, and Ben Harper. This guitar features a mandolin style scroll on the upper bout, and Seymour Duncan pickups inspired by Gibson’s AlNiCo Staple pickups of the 50’s.

Santa Cruz Guitar Company’s small bodied Firefly guitar is usually constructed with a Spruce top and Rosewood back and sides, but NAMM is a prefect place to show off this custom version made of highly figured Koa.

Gretsch introduced a pair of new colors for the Duane Eddy models. Here the guitar is seen in Pearl White with Tortoise binding. The Duane Eddy is also now available in Black Lacquer as well as the original Desert Sunrise Orange.