I'm an Ibanez fanboy
Ibanez
Though Frank Gambale owns Buckethead in the face when it's comes to
musicality, but not neccessarily technique (I still <3 Buckethead though):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cssxcv0xLMshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOF_lZ8v4loShawn Lane is also made of win:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0TyZU8k4lUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5s7uVnaQmUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogoFWACRiV8As is Wes Montgomery (OMGZ he r teh black):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f402svQhuGEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQRc959Sx1ETechnique is a means to an end, not the other way around. It's all very well having perfect technique and being able to play at 20nps, but if you can't apply MUSIC to that technique, you're not a musician. However, Buckethead does make awesome music, but I'm really talking about morons like Rusty Cooley and MAB who are only known for their technique.
Technique is great, if you use it to create music, not a bunch of random notes strung together. Of course there are various styles of music, and some of them are more technique-centric than theory-centric (though a vast knowledge of music theory helps when working with
any genre of music).
But seriously, the garbage that people like Rusty Cooley and MAB (there are others, but those are the two that come to mind) it's disgusting. If you're gonna shred mindlessly, it should at least be musical (like Paul Gilbert, who has both great technique and a great sense of melody and can make even the most mindless shredding sound tasteful).
In short, theory > technique. Don't bother working on your technique if you can't even hear the difference between C7, Cm7 and Cm6.
[/rant]