V.A.I. Prototype

[killerburst]

Tom,

Would you mind sharing the story behind this with us ?

http://www.vai.com/Machines/guitarpages/guitar070.html

Thanks,
Jon

[dpeterson]

I'd love to hear this story as well. I'll guess a little.... that Tom couldnt keep Steve burried in guitars, so he went with the 300lb gorilla which is Hoshino.

Dave

[killerburst]

Since we're guessing... it wasn't guitars Steve wanted to be buried with... Ibanez wrote Steve a check. As I said... guessing here.

[tom]

gather round the old tube and i'll try to remember the tale as best i can.
it would be 1987 i believe. i had been doing guitars for a friend, steve ripley. the ripley of kramer stereo guitar fame, and of the band the tractors. he also had a long history with leon russel and bob dylan. he was buddies with evh, ry cooder and many other big name la guys. he told me that vai was david lee roth's new guitar player, and was gonna be a hot guy, and he was looking for a guitar company. he had orchestrated the making of a duplicate red guitar for vai for the movie crossroads that he would through on the floor at the end of the famous guitar battle. he didn't want to wreck his red charvel. i helped with that project along with toru nitono, a fine local builder and repairer. vai came out to the shop and brought the guitars he was playing and we talked about what he liked and didn't like. we went forward and started a guitar. benny who worked with me then said he had a friend, kelly, who was an artist, who could come up with a cool graphic for the guitar. remember this was the 80's. he did, and we had benny's brother elwood silkscrean on the pattern(he did all our early t shirts too). i still have a duplicate of that body that was the test screening. an interesting rabit trail is that i had replaced the neck on evh's original guitar, and he and valerie came by the shop to pick it up and without any prompting, he saw the body and said "that looks like steve vai"! bizare. benny also came up with the Visual Assault Instrument lettering on the side of the headstock.
i called vai to tell him the guitar was ready. he offered to pay for materials or whatever, and i said i would be happy to give it to him if we were going to work together. i was this little unknown talking to a star, iwas in awe. he said he was not interested in the big companies that were courting him and he sounded sincere. he got the guitar and really liked it, and within days he signed a deal with ibanez. i was bummed, but they gave him more money than i'll ever see, so how can you blame him. i heard from a friend that worked with him that he used the guitar quite a bit in the studio, and even had corruthers who did a llot of the ibanez artist guitars, copy the neck. i never heard from him again.
years later i saw him back stage at the stones steel wheels tour, and like a stupid kid a went up to him and said hello and reminded him that i had made a guitar for him. he looked at me like i was from mars and kept walking. boy did i feel stupid.
so there you have it kids, or at least as much as i can remember.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
gather round the old tube and i'll try to remember the tale as best i can.
it would be 1987 i believe. i had been doing guitars for a friend, steve ripley. the ripley of kramer stereo guitar fame, and of the band the tractors.
In 1982, I remember seeing this black Kramer Pacer w/ all of these knobs (like one for each string?). Later on, I had heard EVH used a Ripley on "Top Jimmy".:cool:


Originally posted by tom
an interesting rabit trail is that i had replaced the neck on evh's original guitar, and he and valerie came by the shop to pick it up and without any prompting, he saw the body and said "that looks like steve vai"! bizare.
WOW!:cool: Was this the time where Bruce also reset EVH's bridge on his 5150 Kramer?


Originally posted by tom
i never heard from him again.
years later i saw him back stage at the stones steel wheels tour, and like a stupid kid a went up to him and said hello and reminded him that i had made a guitar for him. he looked at me like i was from mars and kept walking. boy did i feel stupid.
tom, you'll always be "top shelf" in my book. For what it's worth, Vai's playing in the "Head Cutting Duel" sequence from the Crossroads was impressive. However, it was Ry Cooder's melody and arranging that was equally, if not more, impressive. Vai is talented. However, nothing says more about a person than someone who forgets to acknowledge those who helped to make them what they are today - be it teachers, mentors, or luthiers. It's always disappointing when "rock stars" ignore the people that put them where they are:mad:

[tom]

bruce wasn't aound then, i moved the bridge on ed's guitar, but it was before the 5150. it was the guitar used on the second record.
vai played both parts of the ending sequence.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
bruce wasn't aound then, i moved the bridge on ed's guitar, but it was before the 5150. it was the guitar used on the second record.
WOW again. That's right, wasn't it the Lynn Ellsworth boogie body (frankenstrat - black and white, then red, black and white) with the quarter under the bridge?


Originally posted by tom
[Bvai played both parts of the ending sequence. [/B]
Either way, still no way to treat people. You're just being gracious.:cool:

[tom]

that was a charvel body, heavy ash, made from the tooling that dave schecter set up for wayne. had a quartr under the floyd, maybe to make it sit level. the bridge was a full quarter inch too far back, never could have intonated. i moved the bridge up to where it should have been, i left the quarter. we made a hocky stick neck for it. benny painted it to match the old one. when we put the guitar back together, i read the pickup to see what it was. it read open on an ohm meter. i about died, i thought i had broken the famous pickup. turns out it was fine, really weak, really bright. we took turns trying to sound like ed playing through my 410 bassman. we didn't get close.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
that was a charvel body, heavy ash, made from the tooling that dave schecter set up for wayne. had a quartr under the floyd, maybe to make it sit level. the bridge was a full quarter inch too far back, never could have intonated. i moved the bridge up to where it should have been, i left the quarter. we made a hocky stick neck for it. benny painted it to match the old one. when we put the guitar back together, i read the pickup to see what it was. it read open on an ohm meter. i about died, i thought i had broken the famous pickup. turns out it was fine, really weak, really bright. we took turns trying to sound like ed playing through my 410 bassman. we didn't get close.

:cool: the stuff legends are made of!! or at least urban legends:p

[dpeterson]

awesome story.. you should write a book tom. I'd also like to see you do some kind of dvd like prs did, i found it very informative, and shocking at times (the bandsaw through the body part). It wouldnt be hard at all, or expensive.

Dave

[BrownDog]

Memories are a great treasure.

Tom - if I recall the "Roy lore - folk lore" correctly, when EVH came to pick up the guitar, he did so in his Lamborginni (or some other 2-seat high-end sprots car). But, with him and Valerie in a car of limited storage space, he found that there was no room for the guitar and case. He had to call and have a driver come out in a larger car to cart the guitar home. Or is this "Roy lore - folk lore?"

With tone and oneness, Mike.

[tom]

it was a countach(sp?) i believe it was yellow. val never got out. her brother i think was driving the mercedes behind them, they were on their way to santa barbara for a photo shoot.

[Scott Peterson]

Totally cool man. I love stories like this!

[John Price]

Tom, Thanks for sharing this info with us!

:cool:

[pcbb]

very cool story tom.

[BrianH]

So Vai gave you the Heisman. Complete punk.

[tom]

my intent was not to slam him with this story, but i was a bit dissapointed that he didn't even remember me.

[BrianH]

Hey if it makes you feel better....when my band was opening for Alcatrazz in '85, I knocked his green Charvel off it's guitar stand (by accident, of course) and boy did I fill my diaper when I did it.
He did'nt see it happen, but boy-howdy his guitar tech did, and had a cow (can you blame him).
The guitar was not harmed.
Only now do I finally feel the guilt melt away after reading your story.

[sonicparke]

Interesting story about Steve Ripley. His studio is just of a couple of miles from my house. My brother has worked there with a couple of bands and Steve but I've never met him personally. I never knew he made guitars until I saw the liner notes in one of his CD's. So I asked my bro about it andx he confirmed that he made them. Not sure if he still does or not. Kinda cool to find out that you worked with him a bit back in the day. So, Tom, how are/were his guitars anyway?

[tom]

he had myself and a few others do the lion's share of the work. he was was mostly the ideaguy and a great player.

[dpeterson]

the funny thing is, the neck looks pretty grimey for a guitar that he didnt care about ;)

Dave

[sonicparke]

would this be the guitar you did all the work on?

http://www.vintagekramer.com/catalog/ed2.jpg

[tom]

made that one, but the one we were talking about is the one with the front routed pickup cavities with only a pickguard holding the controls, and a 5 way switch in the middle pickup hole.

[sonicparke]

??????

http://www.vintagekramer.com/Ed/guitar-frankhockey.jpg


I don't know why I care so much...just up for a challenge I guess...

If it's not this one I can't find it.

[tom]

that's the one. note the quarter at the bass side of the bridge.

[sonicparke]

man...how good can something like that really play? I keep wanting to build just a freakish guitar that I can experiment with but I would want it to play well too.

And why is the 5 way switch in the middle pickup cavity? I would think that would get in the way all the time.

[tom]

it played pretty terrible when it came in. when we got done putting our neck on it and setting it up with the bridge in the right place, it played great. the switch and neck pickup are not connected, just for looks.

[bhyatt]

Tom,

What's the story behind all the knobs on Ed's guitar above that you made? I've heard that Ed used a guitar that was wired in stereo so that the odd numbered strings are on one channel and the evens on the other. Would this happen to be it?

Bob

[tom]

steve ripley is responsible. he came up witht the electronics. the pickup is hexaphonic. each string goes to it's own pan pot, then to a stereo output. for the song top jimmy, ed pan every other string hard left or right. i can't remember what the other knobs did. the regular kramer riply's just had the pan function. steve did some other guitars with lots more crazy electronics for steve vai, dweezil, and ry cooder.

[Hossman]

Great Thread - here is the guitar before you made the hocky head neck - right.

Cheers
http://a2.cpimg.com/image/68/E2/34496872-c06d-0200015A-.jpg

[tom]

hossman, i checked out the site, and you've got some great history there. the one thing i saw missing was that dave schecter was down there hooking up some of the machines and making copies of his templates for wayne to use. the van halen body was made from those. dave's templates had a bump in the neck pocket where the tension rod is. that's a way to tell where they came from.

[Hossman]

Thanks - It's hard to get the history from people who know.
Stories are easy, history is important. :)
I have a lot of editing to do on my site -
I have some other info to add too - it takes time.

Cheers

[Hossman]

Any idea what the strathead neck was and who installed
the first Floyd on the Franky?
http://a4.cpimg.com/image/C2/AB/34764994-0a90-018D0237-.jpg
here is a Ripley Custom
http://a3.cpimg.com/image/C1/AB/34764993-a935-007B014B-.jpg
and the Ripley cloud
http://a2.cpimg.com/image/C0/AB/34764992-6ada-007B014B-.jpg

[bruce]

Notice in the two photos of the Frankenstien's side-by-side that the one with the quarter (on the left) has the bridge placement closer to the bridge pickup. That's just great service if you ask me.... bring your guitar in for a neck replacement and BAM!... get yer Floyd mounted correctly so you can play in tune.

Benny has said that guitar sounded really good through the 4-10 Bassman even though the pickup was super weak.

[tom]

it had a different strat neck on it when we replaced it. don't know who put the floyd on in the wrong place, but i'm pretty sure he did the second record with it there!

[nickdahl]

Likewise, I love the stories too!

Nick

[velcro-fly]

Originally posted by bruce
Benny has said that guitar sounded really good through the 4-10 Bassman even though the pickup was super weak.

Which shows I'm not crazy in thinking that the lower output pickups actually sound better when running through a high gainer at serious volume....I like my HO1 through my Bogner waaaaaaay better than the H3 - not even close:D

Steve E

[tom]

better is a dangerous word. which is the best flavor of ice cream?

[velcro-fly]

Originally posted by tom
better is a dangerous word. which is the best flavor of ice cream?

Whichever is in my freezer at the moment :D

O.k....so maybe better is a bit of an extreme description...but it's your fault, you make so many great pickups that it's pretty easy to dial in the ultimate tone (at least MY ultimate tone)...and right now - the lower output pups and their clarity are kicking my butt:D

Steve E

[tom]

i wasn't scolding. we all just have to keep in mind that different things work for different people. different things even work for the same person at different times. isn't that part of the fun of it?

[Gobnew]

So Tom, what was the wood used for the body of the EVH's Kramer Frankenstein that you worked on ?
And the other too ?

[tom]

the guitar I worked on was the guitar from the first two records, before Kramer. it was a fairly heavy ash body.

[Gobnew]

Ok I thought it was the one from the Kramer era, thank you Tom.

Does anyone have a clue of what was the body made of for the Kramer EVH 5150 and 1984 ?
It's said that it's Baswood or poplar but no real answer.

[tom]

all the ones I saw and worked on for artists were basswood.

[Gobnew]

all the ones I saw and worked on for artists were basswood.


Thanks Tom, good info !