Watch Steve Vai demo his signature DiMarzio Dark Matter guitar pickups

Recently, you may recall seeing a radical new look for Steve Vai's long-favoured JEM guitars with the natural wood-finished JEM77WDP-CNL, which also packs a new pickup variation from DiMarzio, the Dark Matter - and now you can watch the guitar luminary put them through their paces.

In the clip above, Vai runs his new Ibanez and pickups through his rig and explains his rationale in fine-tuning the new single coils and humbuckers.

In between the slick licks, the virtuoso also discusses the Passion & Warfare 25th anniversary release and new Modern Primitive recordings.

DiMarzio's Dark Matter pickups are available now for $199.99 apiece.

Michael Astley-Brown

Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com, in addition to being an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict. He has a master's degree in journalism, and has spent the past decade writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as a decade-and-a-half performing in bands of variable genre (and quality). In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe.