An evolutionary guitar, built in cooperation with a revolutionary player.
An almost perfectly executed modern instrument. Super smooth playability. Versatile pickups.
Very expensive.
$3,999
Ernie Ball Music Man Kaizen
www.music-man.com
Ernie Ball Music Man’s instruments have a way of attracting virtuosos. Annie Clark, John Petrucci, Steve Morse, and even Eddie Van Halen lent their names to models that became instrumental in their creative process, and big parts of their musical and visual identity, too. Over the course of the pandemic, fellow virtuoso Tosin Abasi had time to try a few EBMM guitars, including a Goldie (St. Vincent signature model) and Valentine (James Valentine signature model). He came away impressed.
While Abasi has his own line of boutique guitars called Abasi Concepts, he knows resources from a big, established company can bring a lot of cool ideas to life. Abasi also likes the company’s bold embrace of unusual body shapes. Abasi and EBMM started talking, and, by NAMM 2022, Abasi and EBMM’s collaboration, the Kaizen, was real. The Kaizen is a unique 7-string with a load of evolutionary player-oriented features and a high but justifiable price tag. A 6-string version is in the works for those that prefer a more traditional instrument. But little about the Kaizen, in any form, feels traditional.
Forward-Thinking Features
The Kaizen’s very 21st century profile is a progressive move in design terms. This ain’t your uncle’s Tele. Our test model is finished in Apollo black, decked out in all black hardware, and looks quite like something out of The Matrix. As wild as it looks, the guitar’s body shape is just the first in a long list of modern elements.
The Kaizen’s roasted flame maple neck is a marvel. It has a multi-scale setup—25.65" on the high E string to 25.5" on the low B string. On the bottom side, the longer scale length gives you a tighter feel and better tuning stability (even if you drop the low B further in pitch), and on the top end, the shorter scale length gives you a slinky feel for shredding and bending. The Kaizen’s ebony fretboard is fitted with 24 medium-jumbo stainless-steel frets in a fanned configuration.
Eschewing conventional tuners, the Kaizen features Steinberger gearless locking tuners (similar to those on the discontinued Steinberger GS) with a 40:1 ratio that facilitate smooth, super-accurate tuning. Aesthetically, it’s very hip and the low profile of the tuners add to the guitar’s almost aerodynamic appearance.
Optimized for Speed
Ernie Ball Music Man makes some of the best production guitars around. And I’ve seen quality in EBMM instruments that rivals many custom builds. The Kaizen is no exception, and it arrived perfectly set up in its fitted G&G hardshell case.
“Contours are everywhere (even the back plate is shaped), and the guitar is almost entirely without flat surfaces.”
Tosin Abasi’s virtuosic style of music will challenge any guitarist, no matter how technically adept. Executing almost any of Abasi’s ideas puts playability at a premium, and the Kaizen is really built to feel like a natural, seamless extension of the player. The body is ultra-ergonomic. Contours are everywhere (even the back plate is shaped), and the guitar is almost entirely without flat surfaces. The neck’s thin profile and satin finish makes it feel extra fast, and the sculpted heel makes for unobstructed access all the way up to the 24th fret. The fretboard is slightly thicker on the treble side than the bass side, and its “infinity” radius enables you to see the entire fretboard with ease.
Kaizen’s vibrato system is excellent, too. The whammy bar is set from the factory to only go down in pitch. Using it vigorously, I was impressed that the guitar stayed perfectly in tune, even without a double-locking nut system. The guitar has a compensated nut, and the strings go straight through the tuners without a break angle, which improves tuning stability.
Modern Meaty Sounds
The Kaizen’s pickup configuration consists of a heat-treated Ernie Ball Music Man bridge pickup and a mini humbucker in the neck. While high gain is part of the mission, the pickups are also clear and present. And though they are passive, they sound awake and powerful, like active pickups do. The 3-way pickup selector switch offers bridge humbucker, bridge and the neck’s outer coil combined, and both coils from the mini humbucker in the neck.
In high-gain situations (I used a Mesa/Boogie Tremoverb combo, Mark IV head, Bogner Ecstasy Mini Red, and Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler as amp and pedal pairings), the bridge pickup offers abundant sustain. Notes blossom into feedback beautifully and djent-style rhythmic figures cut through with razor-sharp accuracy.
“This ain’t your uncle’s Tele.”
The combined pickup setting is excellent for clean, percussive, slap-and-pop figures, like those that R&B bass players use, as well as the thumping moves you hear from Abasi. In this setting, pick attack feels immediate, and the guitar really cuts, even at lower volumes. It’s also an ideal setup for funk-type rhythm figures. The middle pickup setting is articulate in dirty settings, too, and fast, alternate-picking licks pop like a machine gun.
The neck mini humbucker, meanwhile, is versatile and responsive. It delivers creamy classic blues sounds in dirty amp and pedal settings, especially when you roll guitar tone and volume back a touch. Open up the guitar’s tone and volume and the Kaizen is a heavy rock monster. As big and explosive and Kaizen can sound, in cleaner settings it’s very rich. The guitar’s pots also give you room to shape a great range of cleaner tones. With the tone knob almost all the way off, it still sounded clear through the mellowness, and there was almost none of the blanket-over-speaker, mushy tonality you hear from most guitars when the tone control is down. Pretty impressive.
The Verdict
The Kaizen is an exquisite instrument. There is little question about the music the guitar is intended for. It’s a shred machine, first and foremost, made for modern, heavy styles. But it’s easy to imagine how it would excel in other contexts because of the wide variety of sounds available. It would make a very interesting progressive jazz instrument for sure.
While the roughly $4k price tag will be a barrier for many, it’s not obscene for what you get. If you’re a forward-thinking guitarist, particularly one that feels like you’ve squeezed all the tricks you can from your old instrument, the Kaizen has the potential to unlock a lot of new ones.
Ernie Ball Music Man Kaizen Demo | First Look
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AI, which generated this image in seconds, can obviously do amazing things. But can it actually replace human creativity?
Technology has always disrupted the music biz, but we’ve never seen anything like this.
AI has me deeply thinking: Is guitar (or any instrument) still valid? Are musicians still valid? I don’t think the answer is as obvious as I’d like it to be.
As a professional musician, I’ve spent the vast majority of my days immersed in the tones of tube amps, the resistance of steel strings under my fingers, and the endless pursuit of musical expression. Each day, I strive to tap into the Source, channel something new into the world (however small), and share it. Yet, lately, a new presence has entered the room—artificial intelligence. It is an interloper unlike any I’ve ever encountered. If you’re thinking that AI is something off in the “not-too-distant future,” you’re exponentially wrong. So, this month I’m going to ask that we sit and meditate on this technology, and hopefully gain some insight into how we are just beginning to use it.
AI: Friend or Foe?
In the last 12 months, I’ve heard quite a bit of AI-generated music. Algorithms can now “compose,” “perform” (with vocals of your choosing), and “produce” entire songs in minutes, with prompts as flippant as, “Write a song about__in the style of__.” AI never misses a note and can mimic the finer details of almost any genre with unnerving precision. For those who are merely curious about music, or those easily distracted by novelty, this might seem exciting … a shortcut to creating “professional” sounding music without years of practice. But for those of us who are deeply passionate about music, it raises some profound existential questions.
When you play an instrument, you engage in something deeply human. Each musician carries their life experiences into their playing. The pain of heartbreak, the joy of new beginnings, or the struggle to find a voice in an increasingly noisy and artificial online world dominated by algorithms. Sweat, tears, and callouses develop from your efforts and repetition. Your mistakes can lead to new creative vistas and shape the evolution of your style.
Emotions shape the music we create. While an algorithm can only infer and assign a “value” to the vast variety of our experience, it is ruthlessly proficient at analyzing and recording the entire corpus of human existence, and further, cataloging every known human behavioral action and response in mere fractions of a second.
Pardon the Disruption
Technology has always disrupted the music industry. The invention of musical notation provided unprecedented access to compositions. The advent of records allowed performances of music to be captured and shared. When radio brought music into every home, there was fear that no one would buy records. Television added visual spectacle, sparking fears that it would kill live performance. MIDI revolutionized music production but raised concerns about replacing human players. The internet, paired with the MP3 format, democratized music distribution, shattered traditional revenue models, and shifted power from labels to artists. Each of these innovations was met with resistance and uncertainty, but ultimately, they expanded the ways music could be created, shared, and experienced.
Every revolution in art and technology forces us to rediscover what is uniquely human about creativity. To me, though, this is different. AI isn’t a tool that requires a significant amount of human input in order to work. It’s already analyzed the minutia of all of humanity’s greatest creations—from the most esoteric to the ubiquitous, and it is wholly capable of creating entire works of art that are as commercially competitive as anything you’ve ever heard. This will force us to recalibrate our definition of art and push us to dig deeper into our personal truths.
“In an age where performed perfection is casually synthesized into existence, does our human expression still hold value? Especially if the average listener can’t tell the difference?”
Advantage: Humans
What if we don’t want to, though? In an age where performed perfection is casually synthesized into existence, does our human expression still hold value? Especially if the average listener can’t tell the difference?
Of course, the answer is still emphatically “Yes!” But caveat emptor. I believe that the value of the tool depends entirely on the way in which it is used—and this one in particular is a very, very powerful tool. We all need to read the manual and handle with care.
AI cannot replicate the experience of creating music in the moment. It cannot capture the energy of a living room jam session with friends or the adrenaline of playing a less-than-perfect set in front of a crowd who cheers because they feel your passion. It cannot replace the personal journey you take each time you push through frustration to master a riff that once seemed impossible. So, my fellow musicians, I say this: Your music is valid. Your guitar is valid. What you create with your hands and heart will always stand apart from what an algorithm can generate.
Our audience, on the other hand, is quite a different matter. And that’s the subject for next month’s Dojo. Until then, namaste.
The Mick Ronson Cry Baby Wah, meticulously recreated from his own pedal, offers fixed-wah tones with a custom inductor for a unique sound.
The Mick Ronson Cry Baby Wah taps into the vibrant, melodic character of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most gifted songwriters. Few guitar players have been able to combine a keen musical instinct with a profound grasp of how to bring a composition together like Mick Ronson. Laden with expressive resonance, his arrangements layered deliberately chosen tones and textures to build exquisite melodies and powerful riffs. The Cry Baby Wah, set in a fixed position to serve as a filter, was key to the tone-shaping vision that Ronson used to transform the face of popular music through his work with David Bowie and many others as both an artist and a producer.
We wanted to make that incredible Cry Baby Wah sound available to all players, and legendary producer Bob Rock—a friend and collaborator of Ronson’s—was there to help. He generously loaned us Ronson’s own Cry Baby Wah pedal, an early Italian-made model whose vintage components imbue it with a truly singular sound. Ronson recorded many tracks with this pedal, and Rock would go on to use it when recording numerous other artists. With matched specs, tightened tolerances, and a custom inductor, our engineers have recreated this truly special sound.
“You place the wah, and leave it there, and that's the tone,” Rock says. “It's all over every record he ever made, and I’ve used it on every record since I got it. Dunlop’s engineers spent the time and sent me the prototypes, and we nailed that sound.”
Mick Ronson Cry Baby Wah highlights:
- Tailor-made for Ronson’s signature fixed-wah tones• Carefully spec’d from his own wah pedal
- Custom inductor replicates higher frequency response and subtler peak
- Fast initial sweep with Instant reactivity
- Distinctive EQ curve from period-accurate components
- Special finish inspired by Ronson’s monumental work
The Mick Ronson Cry Baby Wah is available now at $249.99 street from your favorite retailer.
For more information, please visit jimdunlop.com.
Slayer announces a one-night-only show just added to the band’s handful of headline concerts set for this summer. Marking the band’s only U.S. East Coast performance in 2025, Slayer will headline Hershey, PA’s 30,000-seat Hersheypark Stadium on Saturday, September 20, 2025.
The concert will be hosted by WWE Superstar Damian Priest, a well-known “metalhead” and a long-time Slayer fan. Priest's signature “finisher” is Slayer’s “South of Heaven,”and Slayer’s Kerry King provided guitar for Priest’s “Rise For The Night” Theme.
This exclusive concert brings together a multi-generation, powerhouse line up:
Slayer
Knocked Loose
Suicidal Tendencies
Power Trip
Cavalera (performing Chaos A.D. - exclusive)
Exodus (performing Bonded by Blood)
All confirmed Slayer 2025 concert dates are as follows:
JULY
3 Blackweir Fields, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Line-Up: Slayer, with Special Guests Amon Amarth , Anthrax, Mastodon, Hatebreed and Neckbreakker
5 Villa Park, Birmingham, UK • Black Sabbath • Back to the Beginning
6 Finsbury Park, London
Line Up: Slayer, with Special Guests Amon Amarth , Anthrax, Mastodon, Anthrax, and Neckbreakker
11 Quebec Festival d'été de Québec City, Quebec
Direct Support: Mastodon
SEPTEMBER
18 Louder Than Life @ Highland Festival Grounds, Louisville, KY
20 Hersheypark Stadium, Hershey, PA
Some names you’ve heard, others maybe not. But they all have a unique voice on the instrument.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Open your ears to new influences.
• Understand how to create interlocking rhythm parts.
• Develop a new appreciate for the rhythmic complexity of Wayne Krantz, the effortless bebop of Biréli Lagrène, and the driving force that is David Williams.
The guitar has been a major factor in so many styles of music over the last 70 years, and any experienced musician can tell you that playing any one of those styles with authenticity takes countless hours of dedication. As we learn the instrument, we seek out music that we find inspiring to help guide us toward our voice. The legends we all know in the guitar pantheon have inspired millions of players. In my musical journey over the years, I’ve always been thrilled to discover unique musicians who never attained the same recognition as their more famous counterparts. With so much music at our disposal these days, I thought this group of guitarists deserved a little more spotlight. The inspiration and knowledge they have provided me were paramount in my development, and I wouldn’t be the player I am without them.
Biréli Lagrène’s Bombastic Bop
Standards was the first jazz guitar record I really listened to, and his playing on this entire album is devastating. There is so much groove, joy, and ferocity in every note. The way he lays ideas out on the fretboard made a lot of sense to me, his rhythms were intentional and clear, and it was surprisingly easy to dig into as a rock guitarist at the time. He has an extensive catalog of jazz, gypsy jazz, and fusion records with some of the best in the world, and he’s also a killer bass player who can sing just like Frank Sinatra! Ex. 1 is over the first eight measures of “Stella by Starlight.” I stole so much vocabulary from this solo that I can still play bits from memory 20 years later. Lagrène’s treatment of two-measure chunks to play his ideas was significantly helpful. Whether it was an engaging rhythmic phrase, constant eighth-notes, or just cramming in as much as he could, I stopped worrying so much about catching every chord change after I learned this one.
Ex. 1
Stella by Starlight
Old-School Swing!
George Barnes is a unique jazz guitarist who was a contemporary of Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, and Django. A significant part of his early work was writing and arranging for radio and television, for NBC, and he also wrote the very first electric guitar method book in 1942. A friend in Austin gave me two CDs of his: a collection of his playing from the Plantation Party radio show and an overview of his octet recordings. The octet recordings sound like unhinged cartoon music with guitar and orchestral instruments and are highly enjoyable. Ex. 2 is a line I lifted from a recording of him playing “Ain’t Misbehavin.” It was one of the hippest endings I have ever heard on a jazz tune, and although I can’t find the recording anywhere, I still use it all the time. I love the intention in George Barnes’ playing. Swinging and mischievous, he always sounds like he was having fun.
Ex. 2
The George Barnes Sextet - Lover, Come Back to Me
“Thrilling” Rhythm Solos
David Williams is one of the greatest rhythm players of all time. He is responsible for most of the memorable guitar moments on Michael Jackson’s records, and all his parts have an infectious nature. He is the primary reason I got interested in rhythm guitar, and he is still an inspiration on that front. One of my favorite examples of his playing is the breakdown in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (where Vincent Price does the rap). His signature thunderous right-hand approach to single-note rhythm parts is in full effect, and the natural accents between the two rhythm parts are infectious on their own but weave perfectly together. Ex. 3 is my interpretation of two interlocking parts in this style. He’s said in interviews that his concept as a player was to develop “rhythm solos” that could stand out front in a song, and this is a perfect example of that.
Ex. 3
Thriller
(Better than) Average Riffs
Though Hamish Stuart is most known for being an original member of the Average White Band, the singer/guitarist/composer/producer also did extensive work with heavyweights such as George Benson, Paul McCartney, Chaka Khan, and Aretha Franklin. Though AWB was still working until 1983, Hamish was doing sessions with various artists as a sideman in the early ’80s, including this excerpt from “Move Me No Mountain” off Chaka Khan’s Naughty from 1980 (Ex. 4). I’ve always loved the interplay between these two parts, range-wise and rhythmically. The lower pick line hits some unusual 16th-note placements, and the higher dyads have a churn to them that is amazing. Both parts together feel different rhythmically from anything I have ever heard but sound so cool and unique.
Ex. 4
Chaka Khan - Move Me No Mountain
Wayne Krantz
Wayne Krantz is one of those guys that hit me like a lightning bolt. Upon hearing him, I felt like I had “permission” to play more with the fingers of my right hand, use jagged and intentional rhythms, and above all, to play more naturally. Wayne has always played like himself. His control over rhythm and articulation alone is legendary, not to mention the vast body of unique work he has created. Ex. 5 is an excerpt from the only solo I ever learned of his, from “Infinity Split” off 1999’s Greenwich Mean. I love this solo because it is incredibly engaging rhythmically and melodically, but almost 100 percent inside the harmony. This solo taught me more about rhythmic placement and articulation than anything.
Ex. 5
Wayne Krantz - Infinity Split
Though I could only grab a certain percentage of these guys’ “vocabulary,” learning these parts over the years helped me find my sound. The result was an attempt to emulate some of their musicality in my way, rather than outright imitating them. Anything you hear that grabs your interest is probably worth sitting down and figuring out. While we might not mention the guitarists above alongside Hendrix or Van Halen, they have all done their part to put a brick in the cathedral, furthering music, and the instrument.