Lead guitarist of Maná, one of the best-selling bands in Latin-America, collaborates with Gibson Custom Shop to create his first-ever signature.
Gibson Custom Shop presents the Sergio Vallín 1955 Les Paul Goldtop. This new Gibson artist model has the all the features and performance that Sergio requires, including a lightweight mahogany body with a two-piece plain maple top and a mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard and ’59 Rounded C profile. It is also equipped with Kluson reissue tuners, a Bigsby B7 vibrato and features custom aging from the Murphy Lab. The electronics include a custom P-90 Soapbar pickup in the neck position and a bridge Custombucker, giving it sonic versatility.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Sergio Vallin, is the 4x Grammy, and 8x Latin Grammy award-winning, and 19x Billboard Latin Music Award-winning lead guitarist for global superstars, the influential rock band, Maná. With his wide-ranging, and innovative universal sound, Sergio’s work as a solo artist and producer/arranger have led him to collaborate with some of the industry’s greatest heavyweights. Sergio recently released his second solo album Microsinfonias which features songs with Santana, Fher Olvera frontman of Maná, Alejandro Sanz, Arturo Sandoval, Steve Vai, and more.
Sergio Vallín 1955 Les Paul Goldtop | Gibson Custom Shop
"I feel thankful and honored, a Les Paul with my name, I just can't believe it,” says Sergio Vallín. “This guitar is an extension of my hands and my soul. I remember seeing Les Paul play at a show in New York, I met him backstage, and he said, ‘if I stopped playing, I would die’. I feel honored to be carrying on Les Paul's legacy, and I thank Gibson for honoring not only my work, but also for recognizing the importance of Latin music.”
Sergio adds, "For Latin musicians it's so hard to imagine the idea of having a signature model, and I hope this is just the first of many, because there are so many amazing guitar players and musicians in Latin America who deserve their voices to be amplified and honored by a guitar brand that we all love so much.”
$7,999.00 USD. Explore the new Sergio Vallín 1955 Les Paul Goldtop on www.gibson.com.
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If you’ve been on the path of this spring’s Rhett Schull/Zach Person tour, you’ve been treated to one of the coolest rock ’n’ roll double bills criss-crossing North America this year. Person, who is based in Austin, put out his second full-length record, Let’s Get Loud, in March 2024, and it was packed with alt-, blues-, and psychedelic-rock anthems built around his take-no-prisoners playing.
This year, Person is road-doggin’ it around the United States as a two-piece unit with just a drummer, and PG’s Chris Kies caught up with him before he and Shull played the Eastside Bowl in Madison, Tennessee, to see what goods Person is bringing for this spring’s shows.
Brought to you by D’Addario
Customized Custom
This Gibson Jimi Hendrix 1967 Custom SG came from Gibson’s custom shop, and for Person, an SG with humbuckers is a hard combination to beat. He removed the Maestro trem system and had a tailpiece installed for tuning stability on the road, and he subjected the neck humbucker to a “Jimmy Page mod,” which entails removing the pole pieces to get closer to single-coil tones. This SG stays in standard tuning, with Ernie Ball or D’Addario strings (usually .010–.046s). Person digs Dunlop Flow Grip .88 mm picks.
Brown Sound
Person brought this 1967 Gibson SG Special back to life with a list of modifications and upgrades, including new pickups and a refinish, but its wood, neck shape, and original frets all made it worth it to him. The neck shape is narrow but chunky in Person’s hands, landing somewhere near the feel of Tyler Bryant’s 1962 Stratocaster. The pickups now are OX4 P-90s, and like the Custom, this one’s had its Maestro system amputated.
Jeannie Comes Alive
One Thanksgiving at his in-laws’ home in Dallas, Person mentioned how badly he wanted a Gibson LG-2 acoustic. As it happened, his father-in-law suspected his mother had one, which had been relegated to storage in a shed. Person and his wife’s father ventured through rain to dig it out, and sure enough, a very beat up LG-1 was withering away in its case. No local techs in Austin thought it was worth saving, except for Elaine Filion, who was used to taking on bigger restoration projects. Filion succeeded, taking the top off and installing an X-bracing system to turn the LG-1 into an LG-2-style guitar. Now, it’s got an L.R. Baggs pickup and bears the nameplate “Jeannie” on its headstock to commemorate his wife’s grandma, the original owner. Jeannie usually stays home, but Person brought her out specially for the Rundown.
Marshall Muscle
This Marshall JTM45 MkII is Person’s usual go-to. It runs just at breakup volume and gets pushed with some variation of a Pro Co RAT, his favorite dirt box.
Supro Signature
This Super Black Magick Reverb, Tyler Bryant’s signature, is along for the ride as a backup to the Marshall.
Zach Person’s Pedalboard
Person has done tours with just an overdrive pedal and nothing else, so by comparison, this two-tiered Vertex board is luxurious. Still, it’s compact and carries all he needs at the moment. The JHS Pack Rat is the core sound, set fairly heavy and dirty. The rest includes a Boss TU-3, EarthQuaker Devices Double Hoof, Vox Clyde McCoy wah, Boss BF-2, DigiTech Drop, Strymon El Capistan, and an Interstellar Audio Machines Marsling Octafuzzdrive. A TC Helicon Mic Mechanic rides along as a vocal effect so Person can keep control over his voice from night to night.
“All the kids in all L.A. / Come to hear Dick Dale play,” or so goes the title track from Dick Dale’s Wrecking Crew-heavy 1963 album, King of the Surf Guitar. Immodest though it might seem to proclaim such a status, he was indeed at the top of the heap.
For many, Dale’s legend precedes him. His sound, first heard in a So Cal beach ballroom, created the surf guitar vocabulary and transformed the guitar universe, starting with the 1962 release of his take on the traditional song “Misirlou.” Ever the showman, he worked closely with Leo Fender developing the right gear for the gig as he played his ripping instrumentals to larger and larger audiences. He also inspired a Hendrix lyric and had a late-career renaissance thanks to Quentin Tarantino.
In this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re talking all things surf rock, from reverb to tremolo picking and much more. And while “Misirlou” is undisputedly his most influential work, maybe Dale’s best records didn’t come until a few decades later.
This episode is sponsored byTraveler Guitar.
