Interesting facts: Over his long musical career, Steve Vai has used and designed an array of guitars. Wild eh! Only of these were ever made. Nowadays he mainly uses his white JEM7V, which is inscribed with the letters "Evo", mainly in order to allow him to distinguish between the guitars he uses onstage which are practically identical, his "Flo" guitar however is equipped with a Fernandes sustainer pick-up in the neck. He also has a guitar named "Mojo" in which the dot inlays are blue LED lights.
Additionally, he has a custom-made triple-neck guitar that has the same basic features as his JEM7V guitars. The top neck is a string guitar, the middle is a 6-string, and the bottom is a 6-string fretless guitar with a Fernandes Sustainer pickup. We interview and research famous musician's and show you the gear and equipment in their guitar rigs. Check out our stellar "Who Plays What" section to get the news scoop on what your favorite players use for gear in their rigs. Visit our Who Plays What section to see hundreds of famous musician's guitar, bass, and drum rigs or search the site: Search Uber Guitar Quizzes Think you know something about guitar gear?
Share Tweet Share Pin Share. Who we are. Otherwise, the standard Phase 90 will do basically the exact same job at a lower cost. Some of the most interesting moments in my opinion on a Vai record are when he uses pitch shifting effects. Steve uses the Whammy pedal in a very musical way rather than just as an effect like Tom Morello does.
So while he probably uses the Whammy DT for recording, when playing live he uses the Axe-Fx for his pitch shifting. There are also moments in his albums where there are harmonized guitars which you can reproduce using a Whammy pedal set to harmony mode. With a Whammy pedal you can play both parts on your six string by setting the pedal to create a harmony a fifth lower.
I recommend the Whammy DT over other Whammy pedals as it will give you far more flexibility. In addition to the typical whammy pitch shifting and harmonizing, you can use the pedal to step your tuning up or down.
When your foot is off of the pedal, the wah is bypassed. When your foot is on the pedal, it is engaged. I often practice while sitting down and quite a lot of pedals require a lot of force to engage the wah which is difficult when sitting. So if you mainly play sitting down at home, it is a nice feature. In terms of sound, the Bad Horsie 2 is great and has a good following.
The contour feature allows you to tweak the sound which is a nice feature missing in so many other wahs. His signature pedal is a Morley Little Alligator Volume. Think of this as an optional feature. Vai uses delay to thicken up his lead tone and add some ambiance like many other guitarists. But he also uses it in rhythmic ways that can really add to a song. Over the years he has been seen using a variety of individual delay pedals. The idea here is that with two delays he is able to tweak and experiment with each one and how it affects his stereo sound.
For example, he might run the left delay at eighth notes while the right delay at dotted eighth notes to create an interesting rhythmic stereo bouncing effect. Or he might set one delay with a slightly lower feedback time so the difference between the delays increase as the note repeats. So the main point to take away here is that you want to use a stereo delay pedal that gives you different types of stereo delays or use two separate pedals.
This pedal allows you to play multiple independent delays at once. Just be sure whatever delay pedal you buy, make sure it is stereo. There is an alternative to all the above pedals mentioned. Over the years Steve has used different effects systems for his live rig as a way to help him avoid constantly tap dancing on individual pedals.
In the Rig Rundown video earlier Steve talks about how the Axe-Fx unit basically replaces the majority of his pedals. The Helix was designed to compete against the popular Axe-Fx and has the advantage of giving you the option of a floor unit. One suggestion if you do choose to go for a multi-effects unit is to make sure the unit you buy includes an expression pedal and has the ability to add another expression pedal.
Having two expression pedals will give you far more flexibility than one pedal and trying to jump between a whammy, wah or volume control. For most guitarists, individual pedals are probably the better option. Steve needs to change between complicated effects setups quickly in every song so for him the Axe-Fx is ideal. The idea with the below rig is that it covers all the important bases eg: Ibanez with a Floyd Rose, stereo amp, etc.
They both cost the same so it really depends whether you want to play a 7 string or not or whether you want the Jem look and feel. If you already have a suitable guitar or amp, it will cut the cost right down. Upgrading the guitar alone and keeping the rest of the budget rig will be enough for many people. The first thing that probably stands out with this rig is that it uses 2 combo amps. My suggestion is to use your existing amp and buy another similar sized one to run as the other output.
The only other point worth mentioning is how much of a jump the guitars are from the budget options. Again, the 6 and 7 string options are the same price so it really depends if you want to play a 7 string or get a Jem.
Wise words indeed. Guitars are very rarely as tied to an artist as the RG is with Steve Vai. The series was launched in alongside his original signature JEM, with many similarities between the two instruments.
Its sister guitar, the RG, is one of the biggest-selling guitars in the world. It has this personality virtually shaped like my mind and body. Which, thankfully, is the exact kind of thing Ibanez are masters of These models also feature an alder body, a five-piece Maple and Walnut neck, an Edge tremolo, a rosewood neck, a magnetic tremolo cavity plate and gold hardware.
And he most certainly did - from using an early prototype on stage with Whitesnake to, perhaps most notably of all, his Grammy-winning masterpiece Passion And Warfare.
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