Carvin to debut Steve Vai Legacy II Series amplifiers

Are Alien Love Secrets included?
Are Alien Love Secrets included?

At Winter NAMM 2009 next week, Carvin Guitars will be unveiling the all-new Steve Vai Legacy II Series guitar amplifiers.

The Legacy II amps represent years of development, design and testing between Carvin engineers and Steve Vai. The 3-channel, all-tube Legacy II features all-new circuit designs that have been reviewed and tweaked by renowned amp designer Benjamin Fargen of Fargen Amps.

According to Fargen, the result is "a powerful blend of high-end boutique sound and rock-solid American manufacturing". Sounds like a mighty fine thing to say!

Steve Vai has a few words too

"The Legacy II is a dream amp," says Vai. "It's simple, versatile and the sound is creamy and warm. Finally there is an amplifier that has a Master Volume control that can raise or lower the overall sound coming out of the speakers without changing its saturation or tone. Although the sound has retained the integrity of the original Legacy, there is now an added channel that acts as a boost on the clean channel giving it a bit more hair. No need to keep dreaming, it's here."

The Legacy II Series is available as either a VL2100 100-watt Legacy II head, a VL2412 100-watt single stack cabinet, a VL2812 100-watt double stack cabinet (perfect for intimate coffee house gigs - we keed, we keed!), or a VL2122 100-watt Legacy II combo amp.

Pricing and availability information isn't known as of press time, but MusicRadar will bring you more on the Carvin Legacy II Series amplifiers in our special NAMM coverage next week.

Joe Bosso

Joe is a freelance journalist who has, over the past few decades, interviewed hundreds of guitarists for Guitar WorldGuitar PlayerMusicRadar and Classic Rock. He is also a former editor of Guitar World, contributing writer for Guitar Aficionado and VP of A&R for Island Records. He’s an enthusiastic guitarist, but he’s nowhere near the likes of the people he interviews. Surprisingly, his skills are more suited to the drums. If you need a drummer for your Beatles tribute band, look him up.