By Vinnie DeMasi
The VinMan-2000’s Strat-shaped body is made of alder with a thin quilted-maple laminate top that enhances the finish cosmetically without affecting the tone. The 25 1/2"-scale, 22-fret maple neck has a maple fretboard, black dot inlays, a "V" logo on the 12th fret, and most importantly to Moore, a small, streamlined radius.
The hardware is gold-plated and features Grover tuners and a Floyd Rose tremolo and locking-nut system. For pickups, the VM-2000 boasts a DiMarzio Fast Track DP181 in the neck position and a DiMarzio DP402 Virtual Vintage Blues in the middle position. For the bridge position, Moore had Dean custom design the Shredhead pickup to his specs. "I've been using very powerful high-impedance pickups for years,” says Moore. “But recently I started getting into lower-impedance models because they highlight the dynamics in my playing better and allow for more of the picking nuances to come through. The Shredhead's 12.5k of DC resistance offers a neutral transparency and evenly splits the difference between a traditional PAF and a more powerful pickup."
Moore plugs his VM-2000 into an ENGL Special Edition E670 head and 4X12 cabinet. His signal chain also includes a Boss TU-2 tuner, a Dunlop Crybaby wah, a Boss OC-2 octave pedal, an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, an Arion SCH-1 chorus, a T-Rex Replica delay, and an MXR M-169 Carbon Copy delay. All the effects are juiced by a VooDoo Labs Pedal Power 2, connected with Planet Waves custom cables, and fed through the ENGL's effects loop.
Of his stripped down rig Moore says, "Onstage I don't like too many options. Once I tried running a dry amp and a second amp for effects, and I had a volume pedal controlling the delay to the second amp. I wound up spending the whole gig playing with the pedal trying to dial in the delay and it drove me a little crazy, so I went back to a simpler set-up.
Read Vinnie DeMasi's full feature interview with Vinnie Moore in the October 2009 issue of Guitar Player.