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ITALIA GUITARS REPRESENTATIVE: Okay. We're talking about Italia Guitars today, and Italia Guitars are designed by Trev Wilkinson. Trev has been known for many many years. He's a well-known guitar designer. They use all of his components: Wilkinson bridges, Wilkinson pickups have been used. Just OEM products for a lot of guitar manufacturers, and Italia Guitars are manufactured in Korea, all designed by Trev. The Italia name is derived from some of the original designs of the '60s, the Italian designs of the '60s such as the EKOs, Kents, Nationals, Goyas, and so on.

Here we have the Mondial - or excuse me, the Modena model. The Modena features three mini humbuckers, smooth action tremolo system, and one of the beautiful things about the Modena is the fact that you have seven different pickup configurations. You can get the back and the front pickup alone by blending in or out the middle pickup. You can get all three mini-humbuckers together as well. Subtle differences but they are noticeable and it gets a large variety of tonal combinations.

Another interesting thing about some of the Italias is we, on the back plate, we'll use a design that similar to the body shape as you can see, and we do this on several of the models. This model features a pearloid back. We also offer it with a -- this is a standard flat black finish for somebody that wants something a little more traditional.

We can move on to the Maranello. The Maranello is one of the original Italia models. It features a floating pickguard, pearloid back. We also have this model in several different finishes: Gold Sparkle, Red Sparkle, Blue Sparkle, Black Sparkle, Silver Sparkle. We also offer it in a standard lacquer finish such as a solid red, solid black, and so on. Wilkinson humbucking pickups has a very nice tone.

An artist in England, Chris Rea, blues player, has been playing this particular model, and Chris had a '60s vintage Strat. Actually, Fender did a signature model of his '60s Strat called Pinkie and Chris found one of these in a store in England and felt that it sounded identical to his Pinkie model and went out and bought a few more. So, it's interesting that he felt that this had a Strat-like tone to it.

We can move on to the Mondial. This is one of the original models, probably what you would call our flagship model. The Mondial is an interesting piece. It features two outputs. You have a piezo pickup, a hand-built piezo pickup in the bridge. You have two tone controls, a bass and a treble for the piezo. Of course, all of our Italias feature this unique nameplate to kind of give it that retro look. This is a fiberglass-top model. We make it in a wood top, mahogany wood top model as well. Two humbuckers. You can blend in the piezo with the humbuckers or do them on their own as well. Fiberglass top, it's a wood back.

This model was recently reviewed in Guitar One magazine. They reviewed it on their DVD review, and the reviewer mentioned that he felt that you really couldn't find a better guitar for blues out there. A lot of guys are using this for slide playing. It works very well for slide tone.

The Mondial, I might add too, is available in quite a few different retro finishes: Surf Green, Powder Blue, and of course traditional black and cream.

Here we have our Modulo. The Modulo, of course, has a traditional body shape. Wilkinson pickups of course, really hot sounding pickups, really great Strat-like tones. A P90 pickup which gives it some unique tones as well, Sparkle finish, of course the Modulo nameplate. All of the colors I’ve mentioned previously are available on this one, and then we have the pearloid back and of course the nameplate that I’ve talked about previously or the back plate.

I’ll move on to the Imola bass. It’s called the Imola, I-M-O-L-A. Another thing about Italia that I should mention is all of the models are named after either Italian sports cars or cities in Italy just to follow the Italia theme. This model is one of our newest model basses. It features a nice burled wood pickguard, a sound chamber, unique sound chamber. It is a solid wood body with the sound chamber cutout. This model I guess I would say is reminiscent of the Ampeg basses available in the ‘70s. We also have this available in a five-string version and also a fretless version.

Here we have the Italia Maranello Speedster model. This is one of the newer models in the Maranello line. This features two humbuckers. We also have it available with the single humbucker, the unique cigar-shaped control plate, of course the racing stripe. The entire model follows a racing theme with the roadway inlays, and you have the Italia laser logo. And what’s nice about this model is as we look at the back, you’ll see the neck joint seamless, very smooth, and the cutaways allow for nice access to the higher frets, which again is great for the Speedster name. This is available in a lot of different colors which are reminiscent of a lot of the sports car finishes, for instance Racing Red, yellow finish, green, and then also black.

Okay. And finally what we have here is the Italia Rimini, Rimini 12-string. Now, this model is also available in a six-string version and, believe it or not, a double neck which looks pretty wild. So, we have here the 12-string version which features P90 pickups, the cigar-shaped control plate, you have the toggles, the three-way toggle switch, Italia tailpiece, and this model features a pearloid finish, in particular a white pearloid. We also have it available in a gray pearloid and some sunburst finishes too.

Now, one thing that we’ve done with the Italia 12, Rimini 12-string, is we’ve made the tuning a lot easier to deal with. If you look at this particular model, we call it our 6+6 tuning head design, and it allows for easy access to the bottom tuners by facing them outward towards the back of the headstock. And you see the back features a nice burst finish to finish it off. We have this available in a red pearloid as well, a blue pearloid, and a gray pearloid.