Roope Latvala

A very beat down CS Rhoads introduced in a Finnish music magazine 'Rumba'. Very similar to his main axe from '87 custom shop, just with a single coil neck pickup, tone control and a pickup switch, 24 frets instead of 22, scalloped last four frets and a sanded down neck.

Includes Jackson JE-1000 active electronics that provides 12 dB boost that drives any amp to distortion. He says that the tone control is basically redundant (since he played a lot of RR's with only bridge pickup and single volume control).

He also mentions in the notes of the picture that his first guitar with Floyd Rose floating bridge was a Kramer Baretta and he's been a Floyd guy ever since.

He points out that at the time of the article, he was playing in Eb standard tuning, which was what his band Stone played in (must have been around '90 or '91 since Stone switched to that tuning for 'Colours' album and kept it on Emotional Playgrounds album). The strings he used were a set of .12-.54.

The serial number is very hard to see in the photo to identify the guitar exactly from Jackson Custom Shop logs (Jackson Guitar Palace website has some logs inlcuding Roope's sold RR2073 and the one made in the same order for Jiri Jalkanen, RR2074 the white beveled Rhoads with the same specs, that he later sold to Alexi Laiho), but there's no certainty of this one. Latvala said on a video he's been playing this one for 15 years already.

This guitar can be seen on the video from a Finnish guitar clinic in Lahti in 2001, where Latvala and Laiho play some Sinergy and Stone, Children of Bodom and Ozzy Osbourne songs and promote the RR/LL "signature" custom order run to Jackson by Musamaailma. 51 guitars were made only for Finnish market and had vaguely similar specs than the infamours custom shop black and yellow RR's of Latvala and Laiho.

This video from EMGBackstage is an interview with Roope Latvala's guitar tech Antti Harma. Antti starts out the tour of Roope's rig with his ESP Signature Guitar, the ESP RS-II.

This video from EMGBackstage is an interview with Roope Latvala's guitar tech Antti Harma. Antti shows that the second item in Roope's effects chain is the Engle 530 Preamp.

Can be seen on Latvala's rack on a tour with Bodom and in the Lahti guitar clinic rack from 2001.

In a Soundi interview from 2008 Latvala talks about Stone making a comeback tour, playing in Children of Bodom and his gear. He says he plays fairly cleanly when it comes to effects, only a little chorus to make the sound wider and mentions how, when he got a wah wah, his guitar technician took it away saying it's too dangerous of a gadget for him.

"This is probably my most legendary axe. I played this for about 15 years, mainly all the time. It's got a lot of feeling. As you see, it's pretty worn out."

(The quote actually refers to the other black and yellow RR with 24 frets and a neck pickup, very similar looking though. This one had no single coil and only 22 frets and was sold to a Dice of Fate guitarist from Finland.)

"Same, Jackson Custom Shop, late 80s. Truly a heavy metal guitar...as you see, nice tiger thing [pointing to back of flamed maple neck]. 24 number of frets and tilt neck."

" ESP Custom, made for myself. It has the old Jackson specs, I guess."

Roope Latvala has used the Lee Jackson Perfect Connection SP-1000 solid state power amplifier as a backup since the 1980s, when he acquired the GP-1000 preamp. This is evidenced by a user-uploaded photo titled "latlava_rack.jpg" on BlogSpot.

Guitarist Roope Latvala is associated with a 1987 Jackson RR Custom White guitar, as detailed on his archived website. This guitar features an alder body with a Randy Rhoads offset V-shape, a Jackson J-50-BC pickup in the bridge position, a single volume control, and chrome Original Floyd Rose hardware. It boasts a neck-thru maple design with a 25.5" scale, white plastic binding on the neck and headstock, Jackson reverse sharktooth inlays, and an ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets.

Roope Latvala has been known to use Lee Jackson Perfect Connection GP-1000 preamp since his first days in Stone in the 80's and that's been his sound ever since, until the recent years in Children of Bodom.

The picture is from Roope Latvala's rack on Children of Bodom tour.

Roope Latvala shows the camera his guitar collection. Among them is his "Black Metal Guitar" as he calls it. The model is actually a Charvel Model 1.

In this video of Children of Bodom's guitarist Roope Latvala's guitar collection, he displays a B.C. Rich USA Warlock.

"B.C. Rich...I respect the body, it's really nice. It's the only guitar that the pawn shops have taken from me! This is also a neck-thru, everything made in US. It's got a Les Paul scale so that's why I haven't been using it too much, it's got kind of a girly touch." - Roope Latvala

In this video of Children of Bodom guitarist, Roope Latvala, he shows us one of his first guitars. This model is a Yamaha c40 Classical Guitar.

"Classical...the only one. I got this when I was 13 years old. Still plays good. Don't have the nails, I haven't been practicing much classical lately, but I do have one." - Roope Latvala

"It says over here [on back of headstock] 'ESP'. It's ESP wood. It's my only guitar that is able to create some clean sound [laughs]."

This video from EMGBackstage is an interview with Roope Latvala's guitar tech Antti Harma. Antti says that both Alexi and Roope use the Marshall 1960AV with the vintage Celestion 30's.

This video from EMGBackstage is an interview with Roope Latvala's guitar tech Antti Harma. Antti shows that the first item in Roope's effects chain is the Sennheiser EW 500 G3.

This video from GuitarMania.EU shows the guitar tech of Children of Bodom, Antti, running over Alexi Laiho and Roope Latvala's guitar rigs. He shows that Roope's rig runs on a VHT 292 Power Amp.

This video from EMGBackstage is an interview with Roope Latvala's guitar tech Antti Harma. Antti shows that the third item in Roope's effects chain is the TC Electronic G-Force

In the better source image I have found, it explicitly says that Roope Latvala uses Dunlop brass picks.

Quoting the page:

"For the past 16 years, Latvala has used Dunlop brass picks, which he feels give his tone more presence and attack. His choice of pick came about due to an injury. Latvala explains, "In the mid Eighties, when I was trying to get faster and faster, I had the wrong type of technique: I was picking from the elbow and hurt my arm as a result. So I had to learn a new approach that made my picking action narrower by switching the movement to my wrist." To help him, Latvala used a small, pointed pick made of silver. "But silver was way too expensive," he says, "so I started using Dunlop brass picks and filing the end to a sharper point. Brass is cool, too, because it doesn't wear out too quickly and its weight adds heft that helps with the picking motion."