It's finally here!
Specs:
"Spanish Cedar" Body
3 piece bolt-on maple neck - 25.5"
Ebony fretboard (Huge Frets!)
VHII in the bridge and a Mississippi Queen in the middle
Coil Split
Tone kill pot
Tonepros locking T-O-M
sperzel locking tuners
It sounds superb- long scale, maple neck, warmish body and a T-O-M give a tone between a les paul and tele, bright and attacking but with a strong lower register. The best of both worlds for me!
The VHII is the one I've used most so far- a great RAWK tone. Open chords really ring out, and sustain for ever, whilst leads sound full and aggressive. The coil split has got a stratty liveliness but with more body- nice jangly tone that had me bashing out "walk on hot coals" with vigour!
The P90 is something I hadn't tried before- it retains something of the single coil character but has a warmer, rounder sound. Great with the guitar volume turned up when distorted but also a gorgeous clean with the controls rolled back a little.
Speaking of which- the controls are great. On my les paul, rolling back either tone or volume made it sound as if I was underwater; the sparkle disappeared out the tone and it became very muddy. I almost decided to drop the tone control entirely, but I'm glad I didn't because here the controls add real flexibilty to the tone- keeping some of the aggressive attack of the sound but subtly altering the flavour of the chord as it rings out.
Finally, It's so easy to play! Nice big frets, 9 gauge strings, great fret access, and an unfinished maple neck make soloing a breeze and I can play barre chords at the 17th fret!
All in all, it's an amazing guitar, and I'm so glad I got Jon to make my design for me.
Bob
