DR Handmade Guitar Strings

These handmade strings need to be wound slowly when you restring with them or they'll break (so the package says), but they play and bend very nicely. The most impressive thing about them is they stay in tune extremely well. Even after the first stringing of them, they stay in tune where a regular guitar string would continue to stretch requiring retunings almost daily for the first week or so.

Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II

Gibson purists will be reluctant to pick up this axe because of the reputation Epiphone has sometimes for producing sub-standard guitars. This guitar has a slim neck with a fast flat finish on the back and a solid playing feel. The reason this guitar is awesome is the nanomag pickup in the base of the neck. When it's the only pick up on, there's a warm, acoustic sound to your playing. When it's paired with the neck or bridge pickups, it rounds out a full sound that can be either rich or chimey depending on how you set the tone. Cons: the gold hardware which always seems to wear off and corrode quickly.