The Music King is selling kits to build your own guitar. They have Strats, Telecasters, PRS, SG, but unfortunately no Flying Vs. This looks like a pretty fun little project. The quality is probably horrible and if I built it myself it would be completely screwed up.  But for those of you with some DIY skills, check these out.

Mada Guitars has created guitars that are made from...hemp. I know most musicians smoke it, but now they can rock out too. Pretty crazy. They actually look pretty nice. I wonder how they play. Do you get the munchies after you play one? Check out the hemp guitars at Mada Guitars.

Doug Rowell who is a sculptor/wood carver makes hand carved guitars. He uses strats, les pauls, telecasters among others to carve into unique and very cool looking axes.

He has designs like dragons, skulls, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and Harley Davidson.  read more »

Z.Vex Amplifiers have created the Nano Head. A tube guitar amplifier head that will fit in the palm of your hand. The Nano Head boasts that it is the world's smallest production tube amp.

Here's what Z.Vex says about the Nano Head:  read more »

I recently did an article about those little stickers you put on your keyboard. Those stickers are great, but now I've found the Optimus Keyboard.  This would be way better than stickers. Each key is made up of an array of OLEDs so that they can change function for various programs.  read more »

Thanks to the recommendations from my father, I just got myself a Treo 650. I know this isn't music related, but it is a gadget and it might have some value for tech-geek musicians like myself.

The Treo 650 is an incredible gadget. The Treo 650's capabilities are:  read more »

Mr. Fastfinger is an awesome website. You have to check this out. Mr. Fastfinger is an animated site that has a guy playing killer solo's. You can control the solos with your keyboard. Mr. Fastfinger will allow you to print out the tablature for each solo.  read more »

One of my readers gave me a nice little tip about this new String Master Robotic Guitar Tuner. You can read all about it over at Hot Guitarist.

Basically, it's a regular guitar tuner that operates on a 9 volt battery, and has an input for your guitar cable. The difference is it has a little tuning peg adapter, you pluck the string and the Robotic Guitar Tuner actually tunes the string for you.  Acoustic guitars without built in pick-ups require acoustic  read more »

I don't know about you, but I spent the better part of my teens playing along with Metallica and Slayer records. I'd turn my amp up, turn the stereo up so it sounded like I was a part of the band. Man, that was some good times. I still do it occassionally, but not as often.  read more »

I found this cool little item. It's called the PowerSquid Outlet Multiplier.

I know in my home studio, almost every peice of equipment I use has one of those big black power converters. Try plugging these into a power strip. They take up like 3 spaces. A basic power strip simply will not work. Some smarty pants invented the PowerSquid Outlet Multiplier with those giant power converters in mind. He eliminated the actual power strip and connected together five flexible outlets. Now you can plug in those converters easily.  read more »

Chordspace is a free VST plugin which generates midi chords for any given key. Chordspace has a pallette of 226 chords per key. Pick a key and Chordspace will find a chord for you. This software is inspirational, educational and best of all...free.

Chordspace allows you to assign a midi note to any chord, which will allow you to use Chordspace with a midi keyboard. Chordspace will also act as an arpeggiator.  read more »

Do you have a daughter who's looking to rock? If so, you need to check out Daisyrock. Daisyrock creates guitars for young girls. Lots of pink, butterflies, hearts and flowers. What, no unicorns? No Care Bears or Hello Kitty? Even the guitar case and accessories are pink.

I'm not sure how they sound or play. But they come standard with:  read more »

A while back, I did an article about how Jackson Guitars was using adult film star Jenna Jameson to model their clothing and guitars. Well now it looks as though Jackson Guitars has created a limited edition guitar that features Jenna Jameson's image on the guitar.

There were only 300 of the $1,200 Jackson King V Limited Edition Jenna Jameson guitars made this year.

The Jenna Jameson Jackson King V Limited Edition model features:  read more »

Epiphone has a souped up mandolin in the shape of the classic Gibson Firebird and they call it the Mandobird. The four string solidbody mandolin is also available in an eight string version called the Mandobird VIII. The Epiphone Mandobird comes with a custom humbucking pickup and mini Grover tuners.

The Mandobird, with four strings, produces clear single-string tones; the Mandobird VIII, has eight strings arranged in pairs, will feel and sound more familiar to acoustic mandolinists.  read more »

Being a child during the 70's, I was completely into Star Wars. I had all of the action figures, tie fighter, x wing, land speeder, I even had the Death Star. I saw all of the movies in the theatre (multiple times), and I was extremely dissapointed by the prequels. I've been reliving my childhood lately by collecting old Star Wars toys and memorabilia. Yeah, I know. I'm a complete dork. At least it's not Star Trek...huge difference.  read more »