John LaDisa - cover artist and recording guitarist
John's been playing guitar for over thirty years in original and cover bands within the Midwest, most recently serving as a member of Landline - The Live Alternative Jukebox and Bound for the Bonfire. John's no stranger to the studio (having recorded EPs and LPs over the years) or the stage, where he's performed hundreds of times....including an opening act back in college for Letters to Cleo.
John enjoys filling his band's sets with the keyboard, horn and other synth parts for about 20% of the songs they play. He does this using the Roland GR series of synth modules (GR-20 and GR-55). John had an idea to take a stock PRS SE Zach Myers and change around the function of the existing pots in a way that would meet his needs as a synth guitar. He had the prior green Zach Myers and really liked it. The more recent blue color is striking, which prompted him to reach out to Patrick about customizing this guitar after finding him through Google.
An image of the vision John sent to Patrick is shown along with the final product he received that matched the vision exactly. A Resomax Ghost black nickel wrap around bridge was added for the piezo, and the bridge is a good match to the original PRS bridge. This is needed for the 13-pin hexaphonic function of the GR units. The Zach Myers originally had 2 volume and 2 tone controls that were repurposed as a single magnetic volume and tone, piezo volume and synth volume. Switching between patches (s1/s2 patch up/down) on the synth unit is built into killswitch type functions on the synth and piezo volumes. A freeway switch allows John to add the piezo in any pickup location just by clicking it over to the right. The 13-pin output jack for the Roland GR unit was added next to the original jack. The piezo is powered by a 9V, which Patrick nicely added via a compartment in the back. The pickups are stock for the new Zach Myers, and are 4 wire. Although coil splitting is not included out of the box. John had the idea to add this via push/push pot on the main volume knob. The guitar plays and sounds great. What John likes best about it is that it appears completely stock until someone looks more closely, or hears the synth or acoustic sounds during a live set.
Although very intuitive, Patrick never had anyone request this mod before. It just requires a pickup selector toggle, 4 pots, and can work with a number of bridge configurations. Feel free to reach out to Patrick about the 'LaDisa mod' for a killer signature guitar you won't be able to get anywhere else. Reach out to John at jladisa@gmail.com for more details about his rig and how he uses his signature guitar from Patrick live and in the studio. 
