Lava Music is certainly no stranger to producing eye-catching, forward-thinking acoustic guitars. In the past 24 months alone, the brand has produced the carbon-fiber Lava Me Pro, Lava U ukulele and even a host of limited-edition Lava Me six-strings.
Now, the brand has unveiled its latest acoustic electric guitar, which promises to be its most advanced yet.
Meet the Lava Me 3 – an innovative development of the previous two Lava Me iterations that comes equipped with a touchscreen. Yes, you read that right: the Lava Me 3 features a three-and-a-half-inch multi-touch display that aims to “make guitar tools as intuitive as smartphones”.
To achieve this goal, the Lava Me 3 is loaded with the HILAVA operating system, which provides a wealth of applications that grant users easy access to tools such as a tuner, metronome, looper, a variety of effects and an audio recorder.
Notable apps include Effects – empowered by 50 audio algorithms – which lets users visually tweak a range of onboard sound effects, as well as Loops, which offers over 100 grooves of different genres that players can loop up to four tracks over.
Elsewhere, the Practice app offers five practice modes – chord transition, strumming, scale training, ear training and single note training – that each provide a detailed feedback report to document progress, supported by sound detection technology that identifies playing accuracy.
A tuner, metronome and recorder can be accessed via the touchscreen, while the Lava Me 3 also possesses connectivity powers that let users share their recordings to the Lava+ social media platform.
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There have been some upgrades in the build department, too. The refined unibody carbon fiber acoustic has been treated to a revamped FreeBoost 2.0 accentuator, which works with the internal Honeycomb structure in a bid to provide boosted vibrations and a more pronounced low-end.
The accentuator is also paired with Lava Music’s 4-MASS technology, which is said to maintain harmonic resonance around the soundbox, thus contributing to a “clear, full and rich sound from the get-go”.
Available in 36-inch and 38-inch iterations, the Lava Me 3 sports a choice of White, Pink, Soft Gold, Blue, Red and Space Gray colorways, and comes equipped with a Plek machine-leveled HPL fretboard.
Accessories include the Space Charging Dock, which also serves as a convenient guitar stand, as well the Space Bag and adjustable Ideal Strap 2.
The Lava Me 3 is available now from $999.
To find out more, visit Lava Music.
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Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
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