At home in the shop at Gibson USA, where DeCola is R&D manager and master luthier.
Jim DeCola paid for his first guitar with his nose.
āWhen the first wave came, it scooped us all up, and I was tumbling under and something hit me bad,ā he recounts. āSo, Iām in a daze, and my sister runs up to me and says, āOh my god, you have a bloody nose!āā When DeCola looked in the bathroom mirror, his nose was broken and the skin was split. The surf parkās medic sent him to a hospital. āWhatever the bill is, give it to us and weāll double it,ā DeCola recalls being told. āJust please donāt sue.ā When a check for $880 arrived, his mother suggested he use it to buy the electric guitar he was pining for. āI ended up with a Gibson SG, because George Harrison had one, but they didnāt have a cherry red one, so mine was ebony.ā He also got a Roland Cube practice amp because it had a master volume. āI still have both, and itās still a great little amp and a great guitar. And that,ā he says, āset me on my course.ā
Itās been an epic journey in guitar creation: from his apprenticeship at a Lansing, Illinois, shopāwhich led to a dramatic and well-chronicled bridge fix for Randy Rhoadsāto his years with Peavey, Fender, and now Gibson, where he is R&D manager and master luthier. DeCola blanches a bit at the master luthier title, observing that heād prefer, simply, āguitar guy,ā but thatās like calling a tiger a cat. DeCola is an apex builder. Instruments he designed are world-renowned and heās collaborated with an enviable list of greats that includes Eddie Van Halen, Paul McCartney, Slash, Adrian Vandenberg, Rudy Sarzo, Neil Schon, and Randy Jackson.
Jim DeCola at the Gibson USA offices in Nashville. He spearheaded the companyās current two-pronged product orientation, with original and modern instrument lines.
Photo by Ted Drozdowski
In the Beginningā¦
DeColaās family was musical. His dad played many instruments but trumpet was his main squeeze, and his older brother and sister exposed Jim to the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Cream, and other deities of the ā60s guitar-rock canon. Thus fueled, at 15, in his second year of wood shop, he decided to build a guitar. Inspired by a photo of Scorpionsā Matthias Jabs, he settled on an Explorer body shape. A friend who already played guitar detailed where the bridge needed to go and what parts were required, and DeCola reverse engineered from there. He even cut the pickguard from a sheet of gray smoke Mirrorplex. But despite two years of electronics classes, he opted to bring his creation to the Music Lab, that guitar shop in Lansing, where he was taking lessons, for the wiring.
āThe guy who did repairs wired it up for me, and when it was ready he called and said, āHey, I want to talk with you when you come in,ā ā DeCola recounts. āHe asked me to apprentice with him. It was learn while you earn, and while I did learn some stuff from him, really, I was wet sanding guitars and doing that kind of grunt work.ā DeCola was at Music Lab part-time for 18 months, and graduated from high school just as the tech left. The owners of the store asked Jim to take over, and, as Suetonius told Caesar, the die was cast.
In January ā82, a caller with a thick British accent reached him at the shop. DeCola thought he was being pranked, but when the voice declared it was Ozzy Osbourne and that Bruce Bolen, then at Chicago Musical Instruments, had suggested him, DeCola perked up. He grabbed his tools and drove through the snow for 50 miles to the Rosemont Horizon arena, where Randy Rhoads was having trouble keeping the vibrato bridge on his polka-dot Sandoval custom V in tune. After a quick round of introductions, DeCola took apart the vibrato bridge and used a technique inspired by G&L guitars, deleting two of its bridgeās four screws and cutting a pivot with a V-file to countersink the bridge plate. Next, he was treated to a soundcheck of āMr. Crowleyā by Rhoads, Sarzo, and drummer Tommy Aldridge. As the opening act played, Rhoads asked DeCola to make the vibrato āa little slinkier,ā and he completed the mod just before Ozzyās downbeat. DeColaāstill in his teensāwas standing just off to the side when the iconic photo of Ozzy carrying Rhoads that appeared on the cover of the 1987-released Tributealbum was taken.
Six years later, DeCola received offers from Kahler and Peavey, and he opted to relocate to Meridian, Mississippi, to work with Hartley Peavey as his R&D tech. āI learned a lot,ā he reflects. āHartley was a great mentor. At any time, Iād have a stack of books and magazines, or just single pages ripped from magazines, a foot high on my desk, and heād expect me to read and give him a report on everything,ā says DeCola. āSometimes it was related to guitars, amps, and effects; sometimes it might be antique radios.ā After a few years, DeCola was promoted to supervisor of guitar engineering and began designing instruments. DeCola minted some of Peaveyās most lauded guitars, including the Tele-like Generation, with dual humbuckers, a mahogany body and neck, and a 5-way switch. That guitar gave the company a toehold in the country music market, but was also embraced by Steve Cropper and Dave Edmunds.
āWe looked at each other and said, āThe decade of the āsuperstratā is over.āā
Every Best Les Paul Sound
Another pivotal experience during his years at Peavey happened at a summer NAMM show in Chicagoās McCormick Place, when a celestial Les Paul tone suddenly emerged from the exhibition hallās PA system. āIt was āSweet Child Oā Mineā by Guns Nā Roses,ā says DeCola, āand weāre looking up thinking, āWho the hell is this?ā It was every best Les Paul sound wrapped up into one. We looked at each other and said, āThe decade of the āsuperstratā is over.ā And it really was.ā
That inspired DeCola to create the Les Paul-Tele-style hybrid Peavey Odyssey. He also worked with Adrian Vandenberg on set-neck and neck-through versions of the Dutch guitaristās signature models, and a host of other artistsāincluding Eddie Van Halen. Peaveyās artist relations head heard that Van Halen had a falling out with Ernie Ball Music Man and sensed opportunity. DeCola quickly made a prototype inspired by Eddieās EBMM signature model and took it to a gig in Florida, where the band was kicking off the Balance tour. āEddie rehearsed with it and said, āOkay, now I know you can do it; letās come up with a design.āā
During the development process, DeCola learned that Eddieās son Wolfgang had a birthday coming. So, as a gift for Wolfie, he decided to make a 3/4-size example of his signature concept for Eddie. Mid-build, Eddie made a surprise visit to Meridian. DeCola invited EVH into his office and showed him Wolfieās guitar.
āI thought this would be the direction weād use for your new model,ā DeCola explained. āHe said, āYeah, I love it! Just make it full size, then.ā And for the headstock, Eddie had done some napkin drawings in the hotel that were like Flying Vās, but smaller.ā That wouldnāt work, thanks to the U.S. Patent Office. More ideas were exchanged. DeCola was coincidentally working on a new build for himself at the time, with a three-to-a-side headstock. He painted that headstock black, and then sanded a scoop in its tip. And that was it. Eddie was happy. DeCola wanted to get a prototype into Van Halenās hands as quickly as possible, so when he found out the virtuoso was leaving Meridian the next day after lunch, he worked through the night.
āWhen he showed up the next morning at 11 a.m., I was just tuning it up,ā DeCola recalls. āIt was raw wood, but he played it and said, āThatās it.āā Thus, the Peavey EVH Wolfgang was born. āAfter that, the engineering took longer than making the guitar, because I had to do the blueprints and totally spec out everything,ā DeCola adds.
Another important encounter he had in Meridian was with the blues historian and record collector Gayle Dean Wardlow, noted for, among other things, finding the death certificate of Robert Johnson. After they met, DeCola started going to Wardlowās home weekly to talk about the roots of the genre heād begun studying as a young player, listen to rare old 78s, and absorb the techniques preserved in their shellac. That study paid off. Hearing DeCola play metal-bodied resonator guitar is a high-order experience, although he also sounds terrific rocking the hell out on a Les Paul. DeCola is humble about his playing, but, really, he doesnāt need to be. āItās a great release, and great therapy,ā he says.
DeColaās tenure at Peavey ran its course. āI was making P-90 and 12-string versions of existing guitars, a 12-string baritone ā¦ and they were turning my operation into a custom shop, which I didnāt want to do, because thatās just low-volume manufacturing. I wanted to stick with designing new stuff,ā he says. āI wanted a change. It was five years with a lot of pressure. I wasnāt getting credit for designing and building Eddie Van Halenās guitars. So, I went to Fender in Nashville, who had what they called the Custom Shop East at the time.ā
āMusicians and skaters have the same kind of soul, the same mindset,ā DeCola says. āIt is something you can do by yourself, as a form of expression, but when youāve got your crew and youāre skating, itās like being with your band.ā
Photo courtesy of Jim DeCola
āI came up with the idea of teaching people how to use things that every guitar player is going to have around the house for toolsācoins or picksāand MacGyver their instruments.ā
On to Gibson
There, he worked with Bruce Bolen and pickup guru Tim Shaw. But after Bolen retired in 2011 and Fender decided to close that Nashville location, DeCola found out about openings at Gibson and applied. In June, he was hired as master luthier.
āGibsonās been a great ride,ā DeCola attests. Although it hasnāt always been easy. When DeCola came onboard, the notoriously controlling, sometimes-volatile Henry Juszkiewicz was CEO. āIt was fine for me, because Henry respected me, but it was an environment where I felt I had to be measured in my responses,ā he says. There were also notorious design gaffes, like ārobot tunersā and the dreadful Firebird Xāboth pet projects of Juszkiewicz that almost literally no one else, especially customers, desired.
āI got blamed for some of that stuff, but I was just the messenger,ā DeCola says. But as James Curleigh and, now, Cesar Gueikian took over Gibsonās leadership, DeCola had an opportunity to proactively get his thoughts on the direction for the companyās products before more receptive CEOs.
āI made a bullet list and at one point had maybe 40 things on there, like going back to a thin binding on certain models and changing features,ā he relates. āBut my main message was, āGive the people what they want; weāre not here to dictate what people want.āā Many of DeColaās ideas were manifested in the roster of guitars at the Gibson display at NAMM 2019āinstruments that honored and built upon the companyās legacy. DeCola also had the idea of splitting Gibsonās model line into original and modern categories. āMy concept was, we have the original models, which weāre determined to improve, and the modern line where we could have locking tuners, push-pull pots, and blueberry burst finishesāfeatures that arenāt rooted in the golden years of the ā50s.ā
Gueikian embraced that practice for Gibson USA and the Custom Shop, and expanded it to the acoustic Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana, and to the Mesa/Boogie amp line. But DeCola was already on the case with amplification. Before Curleigh stepped down, heād asked DeCola to look at Gibsonās amp line, and, again, DeCola looked back andforward at once. Inspired by his personal collection of vintage Gibson amps, he mapped out a new product line for 10-, 20-, and 40-watters. āI based my thinking off the greatest hits of those classic amps, and focused on the Falcon, because I have a ā62 Falcon, and when I looked into its history, the revelation was that it was the first amp with both reverb and tremolo,ā he says. āSo, I thought that would be a cool amp to make.ā Then Gibson bought Mesa/Boogie under Gueikianās stewardship, and the project went to that companyās Randall Smith, who created a stellar original design. Gibson unveiled the power-switching Falcon 5 (which won PGās coveted Premier Gear Award) and Falcon 20 in January 2024.
DeCola is skilled in every aspect of guitar building, including working in the spray shop, where he is seen here training the gun on a model year 2024 blueberry burst Les Paul Studio.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
Mr. Fix-It
While the profile of most people in the guitar industry went down during the pandemic, DeColaās went up thanks to a series of how-to videos he made for Gibsonās YouTube channel. They cover such topics as how to adjust action and pickup height, and how to do a proper setup. āI wanted to do something for the guitar community when things were shut down, so I came up with the idea of teaching people how to use things that every guitar player is going to have around the house for toolsācoins or picksāand MacGyver their instruments,ā he says. These videos have hundreds of thousands of views, and have given him a kind of celebrity status thatās rare among luthiers.
When asked what makes a great guitar, including the signature models heās worked on at Gibson for Paul McCartney, Slash, and others, DeCola talks about achieving a commonsense, holistic balance of design, materials, and craftsmanship. He adds that there is no shortage of fine instruments now available, and that, moving ahead, he sees the kind of balance between tradition and invention that he has promoted at Gibson remaining its norm. āThere are a lot of boutique builders and trends like 7- and 8-string guitars, fanned frets, and different scale lengths today,ā he notes. āSome of it can be cyclical. There was a period in the ā80s and ā90s, for example, when a lot of people were adopting 7-strings, and now I see a lot of them again.
āGibson was built on innovation,ā he continues. āOrville Gibson, our founder, got his first patent creating a mandolin built completely different than other mandolins. Prior to that, they were typically gourd instruments, but he applied the carved back and top method from the violin and cello. And with the jazz-box electric guitars, there were so many Gibson innovations, like the adjustable neck and bridge, the humbucking pickupā¦. But because weāre a legacy company, we have to tread a bit lighter on some of the innovation, which our previous leadership was too forward on, with features the market wasnāt ready for. But in defense of that, Iāll go back to our heritage instruments. The Flying V and Explorer were all designed out of the space race, but initially commercial flopsātoo ahead of their time. So thatās why I wanted to split the model lineāso we have the latitude to come up with some new things, but can still honor whatās expected of Gibson. Right now, weāre looking at some innovation in electronics and other features we will be bringing to the market.ā
Now in his early 60s, DeCola is also still working on his skateboard moves. He tries to get to Nashvilleās municipal Two Rivers Skatepark and Rocketown once a week. There, heās found a coterie of fellow veteran skatersāmany of whom are also in the music business, as players, producers, and engineers. āIād say musicians and skaters have the same kind of soul, the same mindset,ā he says. āIt is something you can do by yourself, as a form of expression, but when youāve got your crew and youāre skating, itās like being with your band. Itās even more fun, and it inspires you. It can make you better.ā
DeCola performs a neck adjustment on an ES-335.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
Tinkering with theSDE-3 Dual Digital Delay suggested a similar, possibly enduring appeal. As an evolution of the Roland SDE-3000rack unit from the 1980s, itās a texture machine, bubbling with subtle-to-odd triangle LFO modulations and enhanced dual-delay patterns that make tone mazes from dopey-simple melodies. And with the capacity to use it with two amps in stereo or in panning capacity, it can be much more dimensional. But while the SDE-3 will become indispensable to some for its most complex echo textures, its basic voice possesses warmth that lends personality in pedestrian applications too.
Tapping Into the Source
Some interest in the original SDE-3000 is in its association with Eddie Van Halen, who ran two of them in a wet-dry-wet configuration, using different delay rates and modulation to thicken and lend dimension to solos. But while EVHās de facto endorsement prompted reissues of the effect as far back as the ā90s, part of the appeal was down to the 3000ās intrinsic elegance and simplicity.
In fact, the original rack unitās features donāt differ much from what you would find on modern, inexpensive stompbox echoes. But the SDE-3000ās simplicity and reliable predictability made it conducive to fast workflow in the studio. Critically, it also avoided the lo-fi and sterility shortcomings that plagued some lesser rivalsāan attribute designer Yoshi Ikegami chalks up to analog components elsewhere in the circuit and a fortuitous clock imprecision that lends organic essence to the repeats.
Evolved Echo Animal
Though the SDE-3 traces a line back to the SDE-3000 in sound and function, it is a very evolved riff on a theme. I donāt have an original SDE-3000 on hand for comparison, but itās easy to hear how the SDE-3 bridges a gap between analog haze and more clinical, surgical digital sounds in the way that made the original famous. Thanks to the hi-cut control, the SDE-3ās voice can be shaped to enhance the angular aspect of the echoes, or blunt sharp edges. Thereās also a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats. That also means you can take advantage of the polyrhythmic effects that are arguably its greatest asset.
āThereās a lot of leeway to toy with varied EQ settings without sacrificing the ample definition in the repeats.ā
The SDE-3ās offset control, which generates these polyrhythmic echoes, is its heart. The most practical and familiar echos, like quarter, eighth, and dotted-eighth patterns, are easy to access in the second half of the offset knobs range. In the first half of the knobās throw, however, the offset delays often clang about at less-regular intervals, producing complex polyrhythms that are also cool multipliers of the modulation and EQ effects. For example, when emphasizing top end in repeats, using aggressive effects mixes and pitch-wobble modulation generates eerie ghost notes that swim through and around patterns, adding rhythmic interest and texture without derailing the drive behind a groove. Even at modest settings, these are great alternatives to more staid, regular subdivision patterns. Many of the coolest sounds tend toward the foggy reverb spectrum. Removing high end, piling on feedback, and adding the woozy, drunken drift from modulation creates fascinating backdrops for slow, sparse chord melodies. Faster modulations throb and swirl like old BBC Radiophonic Workshop sci-fi sound designs.
By themselves, the modulations have their own broad appeal. Chorus tones are rarely the archetypal Roland Jazz Chorus or CE typeātending to be a bit darker and mistier. But they do a nice job suggesting that texture without lapsing into caricature. There are also really cool rotary-speaker-like textures and vibrato sounds that offer alternatives to go-to industry standards.
The Verdict
The SDE-3ās many available sounds and textures would be appealing at $219āeven without the stereo and panning connectivity options, a useful hold function, and expression pedal control that opens up additional options. The panning capabilities, in particular, sparked all kinds of thoughts about studio applications. Mastering the SDE-3 takes just a little studyācertain polyrhythms can be dramatically reshaped by the interactivity of other controls and you need to take care to achieve identical results twice. But this is a pedal that, by virtue of its relative simplicity and richness and breadth of sounds, exceeds the utility of some similarly priced rivalsĀ, all while opening up possibilities well outside the simple echo realm
Reader: T. Moody
Hometown: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Guitar: The Green Snake
Reader T. Moody turned this Yamaha Pacifica body into a reptilian rocker.
I have always loved the reverse headstock, simply because nothing says 1987 (the best year in the history of the world) like a reverse headstock. The pickups are both Seymour Duncanāan SH-1N in the neck position and TB-4 in the bridge, both in a very cool lime green color. Right when these pickups got listed, the Buy It Now button once again lit up like the Fourth of July. I am a loyal disciple of Sperzel locking tuners and think Bob Sperzel was a pure genius, so I knew those were going on this project even before I started on it. I also knew that I wanted a Vega-Trem; those units are absolutely amazing.
When the body arrived, I thought it would be cool to do some kind of burst around the yellow so I went with a neon green. It turned out better than I imagined. Next up was the shaping and cutting of the pickguard. I had this crocodile-type, faux-leather material that I glued on the pickguard and then shaped to my liking. I wanted just a single volume control and no tone knob, because, like King Edward (Van Halen) once said, āYour volume is your tone.ā
T. Moody
I then shaped and glued the faux-leather material in the cavity. The tuning knobs, volume knob, pickguard, screws, and selector switch were also painted in the lemon-lime paint scheme. I put everything together, installed the pickups, strung it up, set it up, plugged it in, and I was blown away. I think this is the best-playing and -sounding guitar I have ever tried.
The only thing missing was the center piece and strap. The latter was easy because DiMarzio makes their ClipLock in neon green. The center piece was more difficult because originally, I was thinking that some kind of gator-style decoration would be cool. In the end, I went with a green snake, because crocodiles aināt too flexibleāand theyāre way too big to fit in a pickup cavity!
The Green Snakeās back is just as striking as the front.
