Ernie Ball Music Man has launched the Valentine, a guitar designed by James Valentine from Maroon 5, which will be available for pre-order on 1st June.
“Ernie Ball is such a legendary brand and I am thrilled to be working with them on creating what I imagine is the perfect guitar,” said Valentine. “In the creation I had two main goals: design a guitar I could play throughout an entire set and make something completely new that still looked classic. They took what I had in mind and helped bring it to life. This entire experience working with the Ernie Ball family has been truly great.”
Made in Ernie Ball Music Man’s San Luis Obispo, California factory the Valentine was created using the company’s unique design process which provides artists unrestricted access to the factory and engineering teams to designs from the ground up.
The guitar features a slab ash body, two Ernie Ball Music Man designed pickups (1-humbucker/1-single coil) with 3-way custom wired lever switch, coil tap, modern hardtail bridge with vintage bent steel saddles, 25.5-inch scale, tinted ultra-light satin polyurethane finish neck with 10-inch radius rosewood or maple fingerboard, 22 stainless steel frets, oversized 4-over-2 headstock and compensated nut. The guitar also boasts an innovative tapered design that narrows the body of the guitar towards the top of the player, lightening the guitar without sacrificing tone and also improves playability by hugging the player more closely.
“We take great pride in creating true signature instruments,” says Sterling Ball, CEO of Ernie Ball. “We partner with artists from the beginning to come up with a design that is 100% unique to their vision. Our entire process from first sketch to execution is markedly different from established concept of an artist design tweaking and existing guitar model.”
The Ernie Ball Valentine will be available July 1st, 2016 and is available for pre-sale on 1st June at a US MSRP of $2,009.
