Ibanez JEM77P-BFP Steve Vai

Steve Vai is a virtuoso guitarist, visionary composer, and consummate producer who sculpts musical sound with infinite creativity and technical mastery. At age 12, he started taking guitar lessons from Joe Satriani. At 18, he began his professional musical career transcribing for, and then playing with, the legendary Frank Zappa. More than three decades, 15-million in album sales, and three GRAMMY Awards later, Vai has proven himself, in his own right, one of music's true originals.

Vai's signature instruments include the Ibanez JEM guitar, which he designed in 1985 with first-of-its-kind features including the floating tremolo and the monkey grip. The JEM is now one of the longest running, most successful signature series guitars in history, and for over a decade its sister model-the RG-is second in worldwide sales only to the Fender Stratocaster. Also for Ibanez, Vai designed "The Universe," the first commercial 7-string electric guitar. This instrument inspired a revolutionary metal subculture that started in the mid '90s. Among his many other innovative collaborations with equipment manufacturers, he designed the Steve Vai Legacy V3 series of all-tube amplifiers with Carvin Corporation.