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Download Example 1
neck pickup (left coil only) and acoustic pickup
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Download Example 2
both electric pickups (humbucking - series)
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Download Example 3
acoustic pickup recorded directly into an iPhone 4 via Peavey's AmpKit LINK. using the Acousticlassic preset |
| Clips 1 and 2 recorded with Electroplex Rocket 22 amp miked with Shure SM57 into ART Tubeamp studio into GarageBand
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Abe Wechter has enjoyed a long and enviable
career as a luthier. Back in 1975, he started
a 10-year run working as a designer and in artist
relations at Gibson—a fortuitous gig that found
him designing guitars for such legends as B.B.
King and Al Di Meola. But his still-growing
legacy as a builder of original and significant
instruments was seeded in his partnership with
Richard Schneider and their Kasha guitars. These
radically braced instruments were licensed by
Gibson for a time, and also became iconic in the
form of John McLaughlin’s famous Shakti drone-string
guitar.
Wechter left Gibson in 1984 to build high-end
guitars in his own shop. By 1994 he had
arrived at a new original design, the Pathmaker.
Wechter thought this model would have appeal
in the form of a more affordable, factory-built
version, so in 1997, he set up a factory in
Paw Paw, Michigan, to build the bold-looking
Pathmaker acoustic—a guitar that features a
striking double-cutaway body and 19th-fret
neck-to-body joint.
Now based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Wechter
offers a full line of traditional acoustic designs
including dreadnoughts, parlors, OMs, and
even resonator guitars. But the company’s signature
guitar remains the Pathmaker, which has
spawned a design family that now includes solidbody
electrics like the deluxe PM-7352—a guitar
that Wechter claims can deliver studio-quality
acoustic tones through the use of the Graph Tech
Ghost Acousti-Phonic system.
Does-It-All With Distinction
The original Pathmaker was always a distinctive,
well-proportioned design. And those visual
themes remain very much intact—and recognizable—on the solidbody PM-7352. The guitar
is built around a solid mahogany body with a
3/4" curly maple top and a 25"-scale mahogany
neck that sports a ebony fretboard and a curly
maple headstock cap. While the Pathmaker’s
signature double-cutaway silhouette looks more
conventional in the form of a solidbody electric,
the guitar has a few unique tweaks to enhance
playability. On the treble horn, there’s a deep
carve to facilitate access to the highest frets,
while on the back of the body, the bass side has
been uniquely contoured for player comfort.
Wechter’s trademark snakehead-shaped headstock
also breaks up the instrument’s symmetry in an
appealing way.
Boasting a rich sunburst finish on the maple
top and mahogany back, the Pathmaker is quite
a handsome guitar. The ornamentation is tastefully
minimal—just a W-shaped inlay at the 12th
fret and a gold script logo on the headstock.
Both the body and the headstock appear to have
natural maple binding, but a close inspection
reveals that this is a most effective illusion—the
edges of these areas were simply masked off
during the coloring stages of the finishing process.
Elegant gold hardware on the Pathmaker
includes high-performance 14:1 OEM machine
heads, a Wilkinson tremolo bridge, and cool
barrel knobs.
Uncluttered in layout and appearance, but
vast in tonal possibilities, the Pathmaker’s electronics
are what really make the guitar stand
out. In the respective bridge and neck positions,
you’ll find Seymour Duncan zebra-coil
’59 and Trembucker pickups, a combo never
before used on a production-model guitar. Each
pickup is housed in a Seymour Duncan Triple
Shot mounting ring—never before used on a
production-model guitar— which features miniature
toggle switches for selecting coils to create
parallel, series, and single-coil configurations.
The pickups are selected by a standard three-way
switch and controlled by master Tone and
Volume controls.
The Graph Tech Ghost Acousti-Phonic
preamp, which picks up string vibrations
through piezo bridge saddles, is powered by
a 9-volt battery that’s accessible through a
compartment on the back of the guitar. The
Acousti-Phonic system has its own Volume
control (which can be pulled to activate a
mid boost) and a mini switch (which I’d
prefer to see in matching gold rather than
chrome) that toggles between the various
circuits—the acoustic, acoustic plus electric,
and electric alone.
The craftsmanship of our review model,
which was made in Korea and set up in Indiana
with a Plek computer-controlled fret leveler,
was top-notch. The polyurethane sunburst finish
was evenly applied, and smoothly buffed
throughout. And not surprisingly, given the
Plek treatment, the fret ends were exceptionally
smooth. In fact, there wasn’t a flaw to be found
anywhere on the instrument.
Panoramic Sound
When I removed the Pathmaker from its rectangular
hardshell case, I was initially put off by its
substantial 9.16-pound weight (another single-cutaway
mahogany electric with a maple cap
weighed in at 8.28 pounds on my digital scale).
In seated position, the PM-7352 felt very well
balanced and the weight ceased to be an issue.
But those accustomed to featherweight guitars
may be in for a shock.
Even unplugged, the Pathmaker had a lively
character and impressive sustain—most likely due to
the resonant tonewoods, set neck, and the heft of the
steel block in the Wilkinson bridge. There weren’t
any dead spots on the neck, and a subtle natural
reverb was apparent on certain notes. In short, the
guitar was a joy to play right out of the box.
It was set up perfectly at the factory, with
an agreeable low action and precise intonation.
With its 1.68" nut width and medium C
profile, the neck was comfortable from the first
fret to the 24th. It felt silky smooth throughout,
too, especially on
glissandi and other
legato techniques. And major props are due to
Wechter for using the Plek system and remaining
committed to making their guitar so playable
from the first strum.
With the Pathmaker running straight into
an Electroplex Rocket 22 amp and the 7352’s
humbuckers set in series on the Triple Shot
mounting rings, I found the pickups warm
and gutsy, with lots of presence for both
shuffle-style chord accompaniment patterns
and jazzy lead lines.
I toyed around with the controls on the
Triple Shot mounting rings a little more to see
exactly how much I could shape my tone with
the pickups alone. I actually had to consult
the Wechter website to establish which switch
position correlated to what coil mode. Clearly,
it’s not quite as intuitive a process as using a
3-position pickup switch. But moving between
voices became pretty simple once I got familiar
with the sonic signature of each setting. And the
coil-switching rings provided a wealth of useful
tones and sounds.
Selecting the parallel-coil setup added a little
extra brightness to the bass and treble pickups.
And single-coil settings lent a chime-like
tone—particularly in the bridge position—that
sounded especially nice for clean chord voicings
that I gently and happily manipulated with
the Wilkinson’s push-in vibrato bar to excellent
effect. My only complaint was with the relative
lack of taper on both the Volume and Tone
controls—a substantial consideration when you
have this much tone on tap.
On a flat amp setting, the Pathmaker’s
Acousti-Phonic tones won’t be mistaken for,
say, a Martin D-28 or a Gibson J-200. But
with crafty use of the tone controls I was able
to lend a lot more girth to the piezo signal,
summoning a tone that would work well in
a band context where a super-authentic,
accurate, and detailed acoustic tone is less
important than creating acoustic textures without
feedback.
One of the real (and unexpected) payoffs
of the Acousti-Phonic system came when I
engaged both the piezo and magnetic pickups
at once. This yielded a wonderfully warm and
slightly complex sound that lent extra body to
clean tones from the magnetic pickups. When
a standard mono plug is inserted into the 1/4"
output jack, the output from both magnetic
and piezo signals sum and are available on one
channel. However when a stereo plug (TRS) is
used the signal from the magnetic pickups goes
to the tip, and the piezo signal goes to ring. This
allows the player to use an electric guitar amp
for the magnetic signal and an acoustic amp for
the piezos—dramatically increasing the range of
tones at hand.
The Verdict
Wechter’s PM-7352 Pathmaker is a high-performance
modern solidbody with a staggering
assortment of sonic possibilities. Well made
and eminently playable, the PM-7352 should
appeal to a broad range of players, from the
studio pro to the wedding-band side-man.
While the guitar’s acoustic tones aren’t the
strongest or most accurate, they would work
very well in a supportive role. In that capacity,
the Pathmaker would be an excellent choice
for a guitarist who plays mostly electric in a
band and doesn’t feel like dragging around
a separate guitar and amp for the occasional
acoustic song or texture. When combined
with the broad spectrum of tone available
via coil switching and two excellent pickups,
the only limits really become those of the
player’s imagination.
Buy if...
you want to get great humbucking
and single-coil tones and serviceable
acoustic tones from the same axe.
Skip if...
you’re a one-trick pony and don’t
need so many sounds or your back
is in bad shape.
Rating...
