Electric Guitars
Off Guitar Design Soulsista Italian Diva
Designer Martin Off (offguitardesign.com) and luthier Jozsi Lak
(jozsi-lak.de) collaborated on this glorious, one-of-a-kind homage
to actress and model Sophia Loren. Based on the team’s standard
Soulsista models, the Diva features a gold-leaf-covered, solid mahogany
body adorned with Martin Off’s stunning, handpainted depiction
of the Academy Award winner. Other features include a maple bolton
neck with a 22-fret rosewood fretboard, nitrocellulose finish, a
David Barfuss P-33 Split-Bucker pickup (barfuss-pickups.de), and
a Hipshot bridge outfitted with Joe Barden brass saddles.
Deimel Guitarworks
Firestar
Berlin-based Frank Deimel has built
custom guitars for Lee Ranaldo,
among others, and his Firestar—
which unites Jaguar, non-reverse
Firebird, and ’60s Japanese styling
cues—features an American
red alder body, Curtis Novak and
Deimel pickups, a Duesenberg
tremolo, and a Mastery M1 bridge.
deimelguitarworks.de
ESP Custom
Shop Fantasia
When it comes to crazy-cool sculpted
guitars, ESP never disappoints at
Musikmesse. This custom-shop
Fantasia model was built for Toshihiko
Takamizawa from the Japanese band
the Alfee, and though it’s not available
outside Japan, if you can scrape
together enough to fly there and cover
its 2,415,000-yen price tag (approximately
$30,000), it’ll get you an insanely
intricate winged motif, gold EMGs,
and an original Floyd Rose tremolo.
espguitars.co.jp
Gibson Les Paul Standard
Gibson’s new Les Paul Standard features PAFstyle
Burstbucker Pro Rhythm (neck) and Lead
(bridge) pickups with “fat tap” push-pull volumes
for single-coil tones with reduced hum. In addition,
the neck tone control has a push-pull pot for
out-of-phase sounds, while the bridge tone control
pulls up for “Pure Bypass” mode—which sends
the signal directly to the output jack. Other features
include an asymmetrical neck profile that’s thinner
on the treble side, and a new finishing process that
accentuates the figured maple top. gibson.com
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Italia Modena Sitar
The Modena Sitar was among the most psychedelically
cool electrics at Musikmesse. It
has two lipstick-tube pickups and a Gotoh buzz
bridge for the six string section, while the 13
sympathetic strings have a single lipstick tube
pickup. i-musicnetwork.com