"cheap "artist signature guitars and does the artist use them live?

mark123

Been thinking about these ,Midge ure uses the vintage lemon drop and and his signature vintage guitar live in loads of videos on you tube,cut to Simon neil ,biffy Clyro and his classic vibe signature ,all the live videos I see he's using a £3000 fender custom shop,also wondered does the artist get a specially made one and not one off the shelf jobby..

guitars4you

I've seen a few video clips of Bernie Marsden playing his PRS SE model live and at a clinic he once spoke about the fact that he wanted to let you know that his SE was identical to what you could buy - yet he has a USA Private Stock version now as well

There have been many 'ghost builder' models over the years, were the artist is playing some supa dupa custom shop version yet the market is full of a cheaper version

So many signature models now on the market - at many price points from many builders and from many countries, so hard to be specific - I dare say the large majority don't play, tour and record on a regular basis with such 'signature replicas' 

pintspiller

It's like having vanity number plates to guitarists, "I made sure it was affordable to my fans so they all could have one." £££

joeyowen

James bay might use his epi? Save the originals 

I wonder sometimes if they use them for a few gigs around the release, but other than that no way. 

breakstuff

Lee Melia and Byorn Gelotte use pretty much exclusively their Epi Sigs.

 
 

stickyfiddle

James bay will almost certainly be using his Epi at least for backup.

Ed Obrien and The Edge have both been using their sig Strats (or st least prototypes of) for their last couple of tours

Jez6345789

Most signature guitars are more fan fodder there are a few good ones but realistically they are not going to give you the tone of your hero or unless the model is completely removed from the product mainstream. 

I was erring on an epiphone century reissue last year as a living room beater for noodling on and now they finally did the James bay sig model will it actually be much different.

i like the old p90 sound of his can't see the noiseless version giving me that. For him it makes sense to swap the pickup live to manage noise better. In a home environment  think I would rather have the non signature and put the money towards upgrading the epi p90 to something a bit better

underdog

I think you have 3 camps in signature gear.

1) a version for the fans to buy like the Simon Neil strat (though it usually gets played at least one song each gig from what I've seen) it's about a company shifting units

2) then you have an artist request his favorite guitar is replicated so it doesn't have to be toured and damaged, like the James Bay sig 

3) the artist or company is searching to recreate something that no longer exists, long the lines of the Marshall AFD 100

BloodEagle

Bill Keliher uses his sig models live, though he also uses a shedload of other stuff too 

joeyowen

underdog said:

I think you have 3 camps in signature gear.

1) a version for the fans to buy that makes us money! 

2) then you have an artist request his favorite guitar is replicated so it makes us money! 

3) the artist or company is searching to recreate something that no longer exists to make us money! 

Money money money money money 

I agree! 

MagicPigDetective

J Mascis has used his sig Squire Jazzmaster live; though he has upgraded the pickups. 

mark123

MagicPigDetective said:

J Mascis has used his sig Squire Jazzmaster live; though he has upgraded the pickups. 

so he's put his name to a signature guitar ,but he thinks the pick ups are crap ! ????

drphibes

Chris Robertson from Black stone cherry plays his Prs signature live. 

Gagaryn

St Vincent and Warren Ellis both play their sig guitars

Funkfingers

There continues to be a market sector that believes that ownership of a guitar that looks the same as the one associated with a given artiste will imbue the purchaser with some (or all) of the talent of the said artiste. 

Obviously, a guitar design with a widdlestick neck profile lends itself to shred style playing. Some body shapes and colour schemes are undeniably distinctive and/or genre appropriate. 

There is also the phenomenon of audience expectations. The instruments that can be seen onstage suggest to some people what sort of music is likely to be performed. e.g. Explorers are not associated with lounge Jazz.

Elwood

Mark Holcomb uses his SE and Core live

Whitecat

Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World plays his Fender JA-90s live exclusively. 

jeztone2

Richie Kotzens are stock ones, although he's added a tuner & a drop D thing to one.

I tried a Chris Shiflett Tele tue other day, that was impressive. So I imagine he could gig a mex built one. But then he uses stock Les Paul's as well as CS ones.

Skipped

mark123 specified "cheap" signature guitars.
But I just wanted to point out that Les Paul only used the early versions of his signature guitar to pose for photographs.
The ones he actually used were modded. By himself.
So I guess you could argue that he had a cheek doing that.

KrisGee

Matt Heafy from Trivium gigs his Epi quite regulary.

Philly_Q

I'm assuming John Petrucci uses all those signature EB/MM models he's had over the years.  And Ibanez before that.  But of course they're expensive guitars and they've been built to his own ever-changing specifications.

The "artist's name here" on a cheap Strat or LP is a very different thing.  They all say "I wanted it to be affordable for the fans" but you can bet 99% of them are wishing they were famous enough to have a pricier signature model.  But fair play to them if they are seen to actually use those cheap models.