aboutstairs's Reviews
5 reviews Back to aboutstairs's Equipboard
81
fantastic
bought this used w/ a cannabis rex installed for about $730. weighs about 45 lbs, which can be quite the pain in the ass but a Vox AC15 weighs the same if not more, so it's not unheard of. clean sound is everything you've heard about & more - sparkly, clear, very cooperative with twangy, single-coil-type guitar tones (and probably humbuckers too). haven't heard what this sounds like at tube saturation/OD and expect I will not any time soon. most definitely my sound and worth even the ~$1000 new sticker price, but be aware that it's heavy, VERY loud for bedroom use -- i'm used to sitting directly in front of a practice amp and am having to either change that habit, keep the volume on this thing at the functional minimum forever and ever, or give myself actual tinnitus -- and very low-gain (not prone to break-up/distortion at reasonable volumes). can't go wrong with this guy for cleans and pedal support.
81
fuckin' ace
can't recommend enough. wiry, sputtery fuzz that's not at all like a Big Muff of Fuzz Face but more like a Maestro Fuzztone and, if the manufacturer's website is to be believed, a Shin-Ei Companion. seems to buckle a little under high output, but this is expected and described by the manufacturer in the instruction-suggestion card that comes with the unit, which tells you that this pedal plays nice with single-coil and weak humbucker signal and not so nice with a buffered bypass before it. designed, handmade, and packaged with obvious love. $130
81
solid
it's a strat. i replaced the pickups on mine w/ semen dunker SSL-1s in the neck and middle and a coil tapped Quarter Pound in the bridge.
81
cool
i own this late-nineties '66 RI with lollar pickups. the sound is incredible but it had/has exactly the problems you'd expect from a 20-yr-old Fender offset: significant fret buzz from wear/swelling/whatever and an amusing but almost totally non-functional original bridge. i got mustang saddles installed per a luthier's advice, but this is obviously a band-aid fix as the high e goes through its saddle at quite an angle and seems to sit either a bit too far up or down the fretboard at most times. other than that and the goddamn fret buzz, which i'm assuming i'll need treated with a general leveling or even plek job, the guitar is real nice. tone has the plink, bite, and elusive "bounciness" of vintage surfy Fender offsets, and the playability is good. worth the $900 for me but i'd advise not buying one unless you can try it out in person to check for usual aging-related issues that can get amplified by the Jag's short scale. also know that a Mastery, Staytrem, or even US Fender bridge should help substantially with the infuriating string jump thing.
81
nice but not w/o its problems
i got turned on to this model by the late fred cole of dead moon. it's basically a straight-up cross between a Fender Jag and a Gibson SG with a questionable Hagstrom trem system and Firebird-type mini humbuckers. in terms of general playability and sound it does operate like the $600-800 it's worth, which is to say pretty nicely. i bought mine from a Guitar Center in Seattle that seems to give each new floor model guitar in their stock a big whack in the pickguard area with a frying pan before they put it on the shelf 'cause both pickups were angled exactly the wrong way (i.e. toward the bridge) and the strings were very much dead. after a little tinkering it sounds great - most of a HB guitar's output with good clarity and high-end too. the switching system is a little inane: it very obviously copies the Jaguar setup of an individual switch for each pickup and a treble cut (the white switch here), and a separate switch for a "rhythm mode" that turns on the neck pickup exclusively and routes through a separate set of volume and tone controls. however, on a Jaguar or Jazzmaster, the rhythm mode routes through an extra capacitor that cuts treble off significantly even with the tone control dimed. here, the "rhythm mode" doesn't audibly have that extra low pass filter in the signal route like on those Fender guitars, meaning "rhythm mode" does exactly the same thing as just turning on the neck pickup. kinda pointless and potentially irritating for people that don't like dinky switches, but it could afford extra flexibility. other problems include: the neck pickup is noticeably hotter than the bridge, which makes zero sense but can mostly be managed through a little height adjustment; the bridge is "vintage", that is to say as wonky as it was in 1965; and last but not least the tone controls also lower volume noticeably, meaning you need a rather light touch with the knobs here. the finish is also almost obnoxiously shiny, but that's kinda fun if a little smeary. the tone is pretty dope, especially the neck PU, and the craftsmanship is solid for a Korean guitar.
81
no it's fred lol, i messed the names up
81
but yeah, fred cole did die of cirrhosis pretty recently. real bummer, man was a legend.