Ibanez Jem Overview

Jan 11, 2022

This is the Overview of the JEM Series, I am going to get into details on all the builds. The more interesting things will be a paid subscription, Only because Ibanez still makes money from my work but I don’t make any money from them. I am going to tell it exactly how it was,

October 1984, Guitar Player released the "Soundsheet” of “The Attitude Song” This was a sort of plastic 45. The good old days when everyone had a turntable and a subscription to Guitar Player.

For many people this was the first time they heard of Steve Vai, some young guy from Long Island that played with Frank Zappa, apparently we were told that he did allot of transcribing for Zappa. He would write out all the improve guitar parts that Frank did.

By this time Eddie Van Halen was really helping Kramer guitar sales and these models were dominating the market. There was a meeting upstairs at Hoshino USA with with Japan had noticed what Van Halen was doing for Kramer. Japan suggested that we find some great player the same caliber as Eddie and work on some guitar ideas for a new model. It was pretty unanimous that everyone recommended Steve Vai. Rich Lasner told Mace that they wanted to make a guitar for Steve and give it to him for Christmas as a surprise, no strings attached. (Well with strings but NSA)

We studied all we could about Steve and found things as he needed 24 fret jumbo frets, A Floyd Rose Tremolo and Dimarzio pickups. The US was working on a new design that was a semi hollow Mahogany bodied guitar the “Maxxas”

For Steve, this guitar had all the ingredients. 24 frets, 25.5” scale, Green and pink snake skin finish by Leon Reddell using a technique our custom drum painter Brian Whalen devised using the Binks spray booth filters stretched out and placed over the guitar then sprayed.

After we listened to the whole album Flexible and spoke with Steve we realized that the tremolo system would need to be routed so it could actually be pulled up a fifth when the G string harmonic was played at the 5th fret. Mace did this, but one thing bugged him was that the intonation set screws on the original Floyd were a deep socket. Whenever Mace pulled the tremolo up the strings would hit the Allan heads and kill the note, I remember Mace filing these down so the notes would ring. Steve received the guitar for Christmas in 1986 and started a dialog with Ibanez. Mace remembers that many companies went after Steve, but could not really produce a guitar that he wanted because it had too many custom features. It seemed no one was making 24 fret Strat scales.

Steve had most of his Jackson guitars stolen while on tour and had quick replacements made with some parts from a company called Performance. These parts were modified for Steve with deeper cutaways and 24 frets.

Steve received the Maxxas guitar and a dialog was opened, it was decided to make three models all Fluorescent green for Steve and then send them to Steve to see what he thought. The first one was Mahogany, and the second was Maple with sound chambers in it. One chamber was an entrance and was a sort of output, however, this did not work and Rich was afraid that it would feed back so he had Mace fill the holes with an expanding foam.

Mace told me he remembers he had to be careful because the foam kept expanding for a few minutes after it was injected, and they did not want it to crack the finish. The foam just kept pouring out of the holes for a while, but the guitar was ok in the end.

The guitars were sent to Steve, and he liked them, It was decided to go ahead with the models and have the factories make so some samples. The Fuji-Gen factory thought that these where just prototypes for Steve. Prototypes are easy to make, but they had no idea that Hoshino wanted to produce such a guitar in production, So Fuji proceeded to make the samples to send to Steve for approval. There were a few details needed to be added for the samples.

Most of the details were being worked out with Fritz Katoh in Japan, We were working on some inlays and came up with the disappearing pyramids, Steve was into Pyramids. Once the samples were approved by Steve production was to start, the factory actually almost rejected this project because the guitars were almost impossible to make in production there were so many details involved like the monkey grip, Lions claw. Nick Sugimoto told me that.

Hoshino Gakki asked for the factory to please try to produce these models. After much discussion it was decided to proceed with the actual Jem models. The start would be three colors, Desert Sun Yellow, Shocking Pink, Loch Ness Green. The Loch Ness Green was to be limited to 777 pieces world-wide and Steve would sign each one.

For a product launch it was mid year and the Chicago Namm show 1987 was around the corner, and they decided to launch these models at that show, this was to be the largest product launch in Ibanez history. Advertising for the product launch was decided to be a sort of what’s coming ad so in the months before the product was launched Ibanez teasers ads were placed the major guitar magazines in three consecutive months the first was just a headstock. The second was a little more and finally a full two-page ad. In Chicago that year the guitars were placed under a curtain and an announcement was made when the unavailing would take place.

When the time came, a large crowd formed, and the guitars were covered by a black cloth with a guard posted, When the time came Steve pulled the cloth and industry people where standing around. Kramer corporate executives where also there and their faces just dropped when the guitars were unveiled.

We were working with Steve on some other model’s to complete the line. The Floral pattern came about from Steve’s Parents house Curtain pattern, I remember it being the couch pattern? Either way they took the Pattern samples all over, even contacted the company they originally came from but the pattern was discontinued fabric. Because they would do anything for Steve, Japan went to a fabric company and had the Pattern copies, There was not allot of Pattern so in the end the Pattern was repeated, Many people may not know this, I am sure I mentioned this before, but there are Three fronts, Three backs and whatever is left over for the headstock.

The Pattern is cut to size, put in a Frame, A glue similar to Elmer’s White Glue, (Made in Japan so no idea what brand). The glue was rolled on the body and the framed fabric stretched over the body. wrinkles and air are rolled out. The Fabric is cut back, I remember Scissors being used, then the Fabric edges are sanded back to the edge, Sealed and to hide the fraying of fabric they burst just the edges that are visible with black paint. the body is cleared after that.

Another model designed to keep the price down was the Root Beer Jem. Jimi’s Monterrey strat that he lit on fire was the basis for this, But these are burned with lighter Fluid but actually Basswood is very light color like Balsa wood, a hand torch is used to burn sections then the body is stained. the RB models had a bigger Monkey grip, somehow saved money I guess along with no color.

Steve Vai requested a triple neck Heart shaped guitar that would have a six string, 12 string and a Baritone neck. Mace thought about this and I told him make it like I did in elementary school. Mace said asked me what I was talking about . I said we would take a piece of paper fold it over and cut out half the heart when you open the piece of paper the heart is symmetrical, Mace did this and sure enough there was the heart shaped body.

Mace was concerned about two things, First how can you carry around such a big guitars and second it would be heavy. So they decided to make it in two half’s that would bolt together with wing nuts. After the bodies where connected a small plug would plug in to connect the electronics and a plate would be screwed on the back (This later was just Velcroed on). To cut down on the weight mace hollowed out the body with chambers all in the back, This really help to make the guitar almost bearable weight wise. Steve showed up with this guitar on the Just Like Paradise Video and also toured with it on the David Lee Roth Skyscraper tour. Within a month copies were being knocked off in Japan. Ibanez never produced this as production, But there are a few out there built in teh custome shop, The first one is at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.

Actually in Bensalem we were working on another request from Steve Vai he asked them for a seven-string guitar. Steve wanted a low B string so he could have more range, but he did not want the strings too wide apart. So Mace took two six string bridge and cut them with a hack saw one with 4 and one with three, Super glued them together and did the same with the top lock. Steve Blucher at Dimarzio did the same with the pickups, and a proto type of the Universe was made. Steve asked it first to be called the Axis, but Musicman already had that one so it became the universe.

Steve had been working with the GEM guitar company in New York, and they did a special process called multi color in which the guitars were actually swirled each one different. Darren Johansen had somewhat worked with Joe Dispagni at GEM guitars but was now independent so some bodies were paint white and shipped to About Time design to have them swirled. The first swirl was to be the Multi Color UV77MC that would be released in the winter Namm 1990.

For 1991 the Universe line was full with four models the UV7BK, UV7PWH, UV777GR and the Multi Color UV77MC. The standard Jem Line also added the JEM77BFP. Blue Floral Pattern model.

About Time Design was In the USA and production was in Japan so Fuji-Gen found a local person that could do the Multi Colors, and they started to produce them. Steve was on the White Snake tour playing in New York, and I was sent up to get approval of the UV77MC model from Japan. The problem was that the colors were not bright enough and Steve said he felt as if it needed to be more like the ones he was playing. So they figured there was no other way then to shipped white bodies to Darren at ATD and have them swirled and ship them back to Japan for clear coating and final assembly. This turned out to work well, but still time for the production needed extra 4 months. (It takes one month on ocean both to and from Japan

One model that came out in 1993 was the JEM7VWH model. Back in the late 1980’s this guitar was actually made as a gift to Eddie Van Halen but never delivered to him, It sat around in the LA custom shop until we decided to make a model out of it. This body was actually Alder instead of Basswood and would have Steve’s new Dimarzio Pickups in it the Evolutions. The first ones had Ebony fretboard that later changed to Rosewood. The reason was first the Ebony was Indian and had spots in it, second the necks were thin and the ebony was hard when it dried out the neck would back bow. When fretboards dry out they compress on the frets these only have single acting truss rods.

The JEM7 White is Polyurethane finish, that’s why it does not yellow. The UV7PWH is polyester and these yellow as they age. The body is alder, We actually did use Alder much because it develops Veins, you can see these on many Fender guitars. We felt see through finish’s it was ok but in solid colors we couldn’t use it. Fuji then started laminating a thin basswood veneer on the top and back.

The JEM BSB, 1996 That came about when Steve wanted an Industrial Jem. Same process burning the wood with a torch but also staining the body blue and added the screw head dots.

We came out with the JEM7DBK. when I was at the factory in the paint room they had a bunch of bodies laying in the floor and they would just drip Polyester on the and let them dry very long process to produce them.

1996 the 10th Anniversary Jem was released, With the Engraved pickguard, Abalone blinding and the brushed chrome hardware, The original JEM FP is my all time favorite but this was a close second.

In 1999 I met with Fuji and they were opening a new custom shop that would produce production model custom pieces. My boss gave this job to me designing models for them. The Tough job to make a quantity of high-end models that would have an almost certain sales amount. My idea first was to use our endorsers to come up with some strong models for the year 2000 Y2K line. For the signature models Masashi said to me, design this from a guitar freak point of view ", or make these things really intense. While in a greeting card store I notice on a card a UV77MC model with a sky background and wording that said, Happy Birthday to a unique individual.

Then I looked around and almost every card had this type of color scheme on it. So I called my old friend Darren Johansen from about time design and asked him whether he wanted to do some swirls. I said we would fly him to Japan for one week all you need to do is create the swirls we will do everything else. He agreed, then to make it a little more special I thought we could add some of Steve DNA into the mix. Then I could call it the Y2KDNA.

After the show we still needed to produce the Multi color samples and there was a lot involved, Fuji needed to get everything ready like a tank and all racks and carts that Darren would need. I needed to get all the paint materials shipped from the USA to Japan, Darren needed to block time out of his schedule and we needed to get some DNA from Steve because he was in the middle of the Ultra-Zone tour. Finally by mid March we were ready to go, I went a few weeks early to visit some of our factories and thanks to Email I could keep in touch with everyone just as though I was home.

I picked Darren up at the airport we went shopping for some last minute material and went to Matsumoto to make the JEM2KDNA models. First, we had a few small problems with water temperature but Fuji bought a heater for the water. Darren is the best I felt privileged to watch him work. Many people are trying to learn this system but after watching it I don’t know whether anyone could possibly be able to pull it off like Darren.

More info on the JEM’s with photo’s coming soon stay tuned

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