Happy New Year everybody!! With the New Year upon us things start to heat up real quick in January. This month is the WNAMM trade show in Anaheim, California, where tens of thousands of people such as musicians, musical instrument manufacturers, sales reps and fans come to check out the ‘lastest-greatest’ gear offerings for 2012. It’s a great opportunity to get caught up with friends, check out new gear and see some amazing players shred their licks, too.
Aside from autograph sessions for my peeps on the trade show floor, this show will also see new bass guitar offerings that I’ve been working on with Jackson Guitars, things we’ve been designing together these past 12 months. More info at www.jacksonguitars.com.
Zoom is rolling out a brand new bass effects pedal (called the B3) with presets configured by me, Frank Bello, Billy Sheehan and other monster bass players (www.samsontech.com). I’ll definitely be grabbing one of those this year!
One of my new pet projects is the “David Ellefson ROCK SHOP” app for iPhone, iPad & iTouch being brought out by PocketLabWorks to be available in the Apple App Store shortly (http://pocketlabworks.com/David-Ellefson-Rock-Shop.html). We designed it so guitar and bass players can plug in to the iRiffport and access their iTunes library and start jamming immediately. The app is complete with instant signature ‘David Ellefson’ bass tone and also features a tuner, effects, metronome and even a ‘looper’ to loop your favorite sections of songs for practicing or creating solos. Probably my favorite feature is the pitch device, which allows the user to tune a song to proper A440. We designed this as a way for fans to play along with an album like “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying” without having to re-tune their instrument. Pretty cool! This new app will be available in the Apple App store in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to www.pocketlabworks.com for more info soon.
Finally, just this week I announced my new book “Unsung” Words and Images. This is my first self-published literary work and features lyrics, poems and spoken word pieces which will all be accompanied by some fantastic photographic images. It’s a very deep, rich and colorful book and will be available through www.lulu.com by mid March. Stay tuned to www.davidellefson.com and www.twitter.com/ellefsondavid for more info on that in the coming weeks.
Well, I’m off to Gigantour next week with our friends in Motorhead, Volbeat & Lacuna Coil and dates for Megadeth Europe tours are also being announced now for summertime. Check www.megadeth.com for more dates coming in regularly. Exciting times for sure…can’t wait to see you all in 2012!
David Ellefson
