Epiphone Wilshire Phant-o-matic

Frank Iero from My Chemical Romance spent several years helping design this new guitar which is a bit of a Frankenstein in that it's been pieced together from several different guitars.

Seriously - Epiphone say they worked together on this "over several years". I'm a fan of My Chemical Romance, but perhaps if Frank romanced something other than chemicals, he may have got the job done a little quicker :).

Mr Iero says he designed the new guitar to have the look and light weight of the Wilshire but wanted it to play and sound more like a Les Paul which is the main type of guitar he plays. The body is pretty much like the original, however the neck and pickups are from a Les Paul.

The body has the SG style double cutaway design and is made from solid Mahogany.

It has a 24.75" scale neck which is hand-set and also Mahogany with a '60s style SlimTaper profile. Sitting on top is a rosewood fingerboard with mother-of-pearl block inlays.

It has an Alnico Classic Plus Humbucker in the bridge and an Alnico Classic Humbucker in the neck position, and a mono VariTone which Epiphone says is very similar to the one used by B.B. King.

What is this VariTone thing we speak of? Well it's a six way rotary switch which engages 5 pre-set notch filters and a bypass. As you rotate it the center frequency of the notch filter shifts from around 1.9kHz down to 130Hz. Combined with the 3 position toggle you get a total of 18 different tones.

It's available now from most major online guitar stores for $499.

The purchase price also includes a padded gigbag, but I'd be inclined to get a hard case to go with it - not because the guitar looks flimsy in any way - it's just cheap insurance.

Detailed specifications are available from Epiphone.