NGD! Although I've had this for about two months now

[Zaned]

This is my new Amfisound strat! With BKPs of course. The second picture shows the real color better than the first.

Specs:

Woods and stuff:
- Alder body with a 4mm flame maple top, bent over the top (arm contour)
- Bolt-on Maple neck, rosewood fretboard, 9.5-12 inch compound radius, typical 25.5 Fender scale. Neck joint is rounded.
- Stainless steel frets
- Hipshot US contour tremolo, set to float
- Hipshot locking tuners
- Graph tech nut
- Poly finish, with a satin finish on the neck and a gloss finish on the body.

Electronics:
- Volume-tone-tone, with a coil tap on the second tone knob for the nailbomb. Drops the screw coil.
- BKP Nailbomb at the bridge, 2x Irish tours in the neck and middle

The aim was somewhere between Doug Aldrich's tone on the DIO dvd 'Evil or divine' and the old Van Halen tone. I knew that the maple top on alder pushes the tone towards ash territory, so that was doing the thing already. Originally, I was going for an all-maple neck, but we changed the spec on the colour and I went for a rosewood board instead. It is not seen in the pics, but the headstock face is painted in black and the Amfisound logo is with white colour in there.

So how does it sound? Great! It's the brightest of my guitars. It's really articulate, responsive and inspiring to play. I was going for an aggressive(ish) strat and that's what I got. It has a great ATTACK to it, although it can be tamed.

I had never tried the Irish tours before, I was actually surprised how bright they were (well, it's a bright sounding guitar too) and it took a short while to get used to them. Now I love them :D I wanted separate tone controls for the humbucker and the single coils and it was the right decision. If I keep the tone control on full, the single coils tone is very much like SRV. If I want a bit of a rounder tone for leads played on the neck pickup, I just roll back the tone a bit. It works great, they don't get muffled or lose their character when doing that. I gotta say, wonderful pickups and they can do so much! I do play leads on the neck pickup quite often so they have to work.

The humbucker tone is great too of course ;) Very defined, aggressive and tight. Not clinical though, it has a great organic raunch to it. The split humbucker tone is great too! It's somewhere between a tele and strat.

The neck is really stiff. With the original strings (Eb-tuning, Skull strings, a typical 10-set but with a .52 low E), the truss rod had to be set to create some bow to the neck, as the neck was staying a too straight. I've since changed the strings to a DR 10-52 set. The skull strings are not really my cup of tea, there's some harsh quality to them that I can't dial out. YMMV.

I can heartily recommend the Hipshot tremolo; it functions smoothly, sounds great and keeps in tune very well!

-Zaned

[Jonny]

That looks awesome! +1 for red flamed Alder guitar :p

You have to post some clips with that Nailbomb, I wanna hear what its like with alder.

Awesome guitar!

[CaptainDesslock]

 :o

WOW!!!!!!!

Drop-dead simmering good looks is all I can say!

How far back did that baby set you?

[AndyR]

I prefer mine a little more traditional, but that is one drop-dead-gorgeous looking geetar.

From your description, sounds like it plays/sounds mighty fine as well :D

[Matt77]

I love the hipshot trems. How much abuse can you give it without going out of tune?

[dave_mc]

wow, that looks awesome. :)

[Zaned]

It cost me 2600 euros. The Amfisound workshop is about 15 minute drive from me, which is very nice. I could personally go there, pick woods and discuss the specs. They're very nice fellows too!

Jonny, I'll have to record a clip when I get around to it :) My brother actually has a calibrated Nailbomb humbucker set in an alder-bodied Amfisound strat, with an all-maple neck, we played them back to back last week. His guitar is a bit lighter and has more midrange, his tone reference was that Aldrich tone. It's warmer. Mine has a bit less midrange and sounds 'harder', which is what I was going for with this guitar. They do share a certain articulate chime in their tones.

The guitar plays very well! The neck is something that I think most people would find very comfortable. C-profile, with the thickness going from 21 to 23 millimeters. The satin finish is really smooth and won't get sticky.

I do have a more traditional strat too, Andy With a hippy trippy surf green colour, no less. Aside from the 10 inch radius and 22 frets, it looks like a vintage strat. I guess it should too, it's 19 years old. Gotta admit, it does take aging better than this guitar will, I mean the nicks and dings :? Well, I've never been one to really worry about it.

The Hipshot tremolo holds the tuning very well! A floyd is a floyd of course, if one really wants to divebomb all day. I wanted a tremolo that keeps in tune with a few step drops and other moderate use and it does the job perfectly. I do keep everything lubricated though :)

-Zaned

[d1dsj]

Beautiful guitar, sounds like you're a happy bunny! Congrats.  :)

[FernandoDuarte]

Looks good!
We need FULL "NAKED" PICS of the guitar :P

*cough cough the naked is nonsense there, but sounded good :lol:

[Zaned]

Added a few pics, Fernando ;) Sorry for the quality on the last two. The flash really did a number on the picture of the headstock.

But on the third pic, you can see the positioning of the output jack, which might not be for everybody.  As I always take my cable over the strap button, we positioned the output jack so that the cable sort of points up. It's a typical strat output jack plate otherwise, just not covering any space on the top wood..

-Zaned

[FernandoDuarte]

:D

[Johnny Mac]

That's an exotic looking guitar. Looks great with the black hardware. How do you find the SS frets?

[Zaned]

That's an exotic looking guitar. Looks great with the black hardware. How do you find the SS frets?

I like them. They feel smooth on bends 8)

I remember my initial feeling being that they were somewhat 'slippery', but that might also have been the fact that the guitar was setup a bit different than what I usually set them to. After a while, I raised the action and also changed the strings. Anyway, whatever difference there was fretwise, I got used to it really quick.

-Zaned

[Johnny Mac]

That's an exotic looking guitar. Looks great with the black hardware. How do you find the SS frets?

I like them. They feel smooth on bends 8)

I remember my initial feeling being that they were somewhat 'slippery', but that might also have been the fact that the guitar was setup a bit different than what I usually set them to. After a while, I raised the action and also changed the strings. Anyway, whatever difference there was fretwise, I got used to it really quick.

-Zaned

They do feel slippery when you first try them. They make bends feel effortless. I love the feel of SS frets