During Them Crooked Vultures shows John Paul Jones pulls out this Lap Steel Bass Guitar when they play “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I.”  It was custom made by Hugh Manson of Manson Guitars.   Manson is one of the UK’s most well-respected electric guitar makers and has also been the Led Zeppelin legend’s personal technician since the mid 1990s.

It’s called a Manson Lapaphone.  Its is an 8 string instrument (4 + 4x 1+ octave) the Kaoss screen is a XY midi controller, no internal effects are in the guitar.  It also has a Fernades Sustainer single coil pickup and 3 octave range on the fretboard.  Check out John Paul Jones using it live…

Manson was quoted as saying,

“Yes I did make this instrument and in fact all that JPJ uses on the Vultures tour.  It is an 8 string Bass lap steel with a midi control screen on it which will control any thing with a “midi in”. This is similar to the guitars I make for Matt Bellamy (Muse).  It also has a sustainer pickup on it and a hipshot bridge tuning system that enables 3 different open tunings by moving levers.”

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