I can't seem to find where I read it but my recollection is that he had that guitar made for the Jimi Hendrix Experience tour based on a similarly painted strat that Jimi had. It's tuned down a whole step and he ended up using it for Gravity Storm because the lower tuning made the strings bendier. The bridge and neck pickups are single coil sized humbuckers for his traditional HSH configuration.
That would make sense. It's very visually appealing to me.
So overall do you consider the academy worth the money? I've considered doing either the Vai or Petrucci one but the number of people they draw concerns me. Like if there were a cap of 10-20 students, it would be a no brainer for me but I'd hate to spend that much and then be stuck all the way back in a room full of a hundred people without a close up view of the headliner. Despite that, I haven't seen a single negative review from an attendee of one of these!
I also attended The G4 Experience in 2015.
There were pros and cons for both events. There were 170 people in attendance at Vai Academy. The master class sessions were targeted for basically all to attend... At G4, there were multiple master classes at the same time, which kept the class sizes smaller and a bit more "intimate". Vai had a more full agenda, too.
For me, it was worth the money... Although I'm not sure I'll attend a 3rd one unless there is a lineup I just can't resist.
This session's focus from Vai was theory. I was hoping to get more from that, but due to catering to overall skill level of attendees I didn't get much out of that as I pretty much already knew what he taught.
However, the smaller workshops were cool. Larry, Stig Mathisen, Doug Doppler (my old teacher), Philip Bynoe (Vai's bassist), etc are all great guys with a lot of knowledge and great insights.
Yngwie was fairly uninterested and not enthused and brought a ridiculous stack of amps...
Steve Morse was great. Sad to hear he's got some medical issues with his picking hand and is having to completely change his picking technique.
Vai was Vai
He imparted a lot of his "metaphysical" advice during his sessions, which was great.
Annie Clark (aka, St Vincent, whose music I'm only peripherally familiar with) was actually a stand-out as far as speaking. Her views on writing, playing, ideas, etc was great. Vai is a big fan of hers!
There were also short sessions with Sterling Ball (of Ernie Ball/Music Man) and famed manager and record company owner Miles Copeland. Talk about opinionated! These guys are great!
After listening to Sterling, I have a lot of respect for him and his companies.
One thing that G4 had was a 1 hour concert each night by one of the featured acts. At Vai, he would play 2-3 songs a night plus one with a guest... And then Steve and the band did jams with the campers.
Getting to spend 5-10 minutes jamming with Steve was cool, although I was super nervous up until I got onstage and started playing. After that it was magic! And they accommodated people of all skill levels.
So... Is it worth it? To me, it was. There were so many people there that probably paid more to fly there than the cost of the camp... I was really surprised! People from around the world.
