It is currently Ibanez's flagship model for S body style guitars. The E-Gen model has many unique features and improvements over a standard S, including its versatile tone selection with coil tap switching for both the bridge and neck pickups, Edge Zero bridge (the EGEN8 has Edge III), custom DiMarzio HLM pickups (the EGEN8 has Ibanez pickups) and an extended scoop on the lower horn of the body, as well as a "Kung-Fu grip" on the upper horn shaped by Li's hand. Both have a rosewood fingerboard and gold hardware. The EGEN18 has a "Transparent Violet Flat" finish (transparent purple on a flamed-maple top), and the EGEN8 has a "Platinum Blonde" finish (natural wood finish with a flamed-maple top). Li uses Ibanez E-Gen guitars, his signature Ibanez models based on his old Ibanez S Series, which was retired from stage at the end of the Inhuman Rampage tour. Herman Li performing live with his signature Ibanez E-Gen guitar Li is left-handed, but plays guitar right-handed. Li has stated Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Tony MacAlpine guitar playing heavily inspired his own style. Recently, he has started to use a device called the Hot Hand that sits on his right hand like a ring, which causes extreme vibrato when shaken, giving him a greater capacity to emulate certain video game sounds.
His playing style consists of fast descending and ascending legato and staccato licks, exotic scale runs, making extensive use of the harmonic minor and Phrygian dominant scale, extreme use of his whammy bar, quick full ascending and descending sweep picking arpeggios, alternate picking and two-handed tapping on the higher frets as well as incorporating many other shred guitar style techniques. For example, Li has been known for making several Pac-Man-like noises in the song " Through the Fire and Flames" on Inhuman Rampage.
Li draws influences from rock, all subgenres of metal as well as video game music and often mimics sounds from popular retro games from the late 80s, early 90s arcade, and PC games. He speaks English, French and Cantonese fluently.
Herman Li was born on 3 October 1976 in Hong Kong and moved to France, then to England during his teenage years.