Awesome Guitars

Luthier Linda Manzer shows off one of the most amazing stringed instruments we’ve ever seen – a multi-necked guitar with a whopping 52 strings that she built for musician Henrik Andersen, based roughly on a hilarious cartoon he provided. Hear Henrik play it at 3:06.

Musician Luna Lee knocks another hit out of the park, this time covering Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic Free Bird on her gayageum, an ancient Korean string instrument, not typically associated with rock and roll.

Our brains are so programmed to hearing hard rock and metal guitar riffs played with fuzz, that we’ve forgotten what electric guitars really sound like. The Paranormal Guitar Channel reveals what some tunes sound like without the effect – basically, it’s surf music, a la Dick Dale.

One of the cooler ways to decorate an electric guitar body is to dip its body in a vat filled with several colors of paint. The technique isn’t nearly as easy as DeanSwirled makes it look, so you might want to just have Dean do it for you.

A wonderful unplugged cover version of The Cranberries’ 1994 classic Zombie, as performed by musician Vedran Djurasovic, who brings a warmer approach to the track than the grunge sounds of the original.

An incredible, one of a kind electric guitar, handmade using layers of laminated scrap skateboard wood by 2ndShot’s John Gibson (so we guess it’s a Gibson guitar of sorts). It’s fully playable, with Humbucker and hand-wound single coil pickups, and a maple neck.

Fender now has an online customizing shop. Start with a Telecaster, Stratocaster, Precision Bass or Jazz Bass body then mix and match pickups, fingerboards, body colors, pickguards and more to suit your needs and taste.

Jack White’s Third Man Records and Loog Guitars created this kit for kids and kids at heart. The diminutive 3-string electric guitar kit provides the satisfaction of having built your own instrument before you start playing it. We dig the pickguard, made from a vinyl record.

Inside the back of Yamaha’s innovative acoustic guitars is an actuator that vibrates against the guitar’s body in response to the strings. This gives you built-in chorus and reverb effects that you can adjust with the built-in control knobs. Runs on two AA batteries.

She might look like a darling little 11 year-old girl, but Lisa-X is a serious rocker. Watch as she gets the whole room going by shredding a speed metal rendition of Schubert’s Lullaby on her electric guitar in this commercial for JNB Visa Debit cards.

Watch musician Rob Scallon shred some tunes on an ordinary garden shovel that’s been converted into a one-string guitar. Given its rudimentary design, it plays surprisingly well. Keep an eye out on How to Make Stuff on 3/3/16 for DIY instructions.

We’ve heard music from Star Wars playfully performed on a piano and rocked out on an electric guitar. Here’s Rafael Aguirre’s lively rendition, which he performed at Alhambra Guitars’ 50th anniversary. Damas y caballeros, La Guitarra de Las Galaxias.

Musician Rob Scallon demonstrates how to play a compelling tune with just a single guitar fret. Sure, he does a whole lot of string bending, but we’re still impressed with the versatility of that one little metal bar.

While we were touring the mountains in the new 2016 Camaro SS (yeah, hard life, we know), we dropped by the Bozeman, Montana factory where Gibson Acoustic has been crafting guitars for the last 30 years. Incredibly, almost every step of the process is still done by hand.

Musician Ian Ethan Case previews a bit of his new album Run Toward the Mountains, as his fingers fly across all 18 strings of his double-necked guitar. At times, his hands were moving so fast, we thought he was Doc Ock. The 92-minute double album drops 11/24/15.

Yamaha’s Silent Guitars have piezo pickups as well as high quality digital samples of acoustic guitar strings. You can play the sound through headphones or line out, and power them using batteries or its AC adapter.

We’ve heard of 6-string and 12-string guitars, but this is the first time we’ve seen or heard a 9-string guitar. Musician Rob Scallon shows off his nimble fingers on this unusual instrument with a track called Torque Soul, with Kevin Wade on drums.

California-based Prisma Guitars handcrafts stunning electric guitars and guitar accessories using discarded skateboard decks. Not only does this cut back on waste, it also means each product is unique.

The KORG Miku Vocaloid pedal is possibly the weirdest guitar effect pedal ever made. Here, guitarist Rob Chapman and his sidekick “the Captain” attempt to get through a review of the voice-generating guitar pedal without losing it.

Musician Esteban Antonio demonstrates a truly unique custom instrument. The Ha-Shem is a 17-string grand concert harp guitar that can be played by plucking, strumming or bowing it like a cello. Doc Ock needs one of these.

The ToneWoodAmp is a portable effects accessory for acoustic guitars. It lets you add different effects and boost the sound without the need to plug in to an amp. You can swap effects and use MIDI instruments via its mobile app.

Currently in beta, Riffstation Play is a free web-based app that figures out a song’s chords by analyzing its YouTube video. The chords can be laid out for a guitar, ukelele or piano. The desktop version lets you load any song.

Currently in development, Tabify is a mobile app that will automatically transcribe guitars – and possibly other string instruments – as you play. You can also go over created tabs and edit them. Note that the UI hasn’t been finalized.