Listen:
In a recent Rig Rundown on premierguitar.com, Black Crowes and North
Mississippi All Stars guitarist Luther
Dickinson called tuning a “microsecond
to microsecond battle.” For many pitch-obsessive
players, that isn’t far from the
truth. And if you’re a tuning freak who
switches between tunings and guitars in
performance? Well, that can add up to a lot
of variables—and stress—pretty quickly.
The dream of a self-tuning system has
probably been around as long as the electric
guitar itself. And the Fret-King Super-Matic reviewed here is not the first guitar
to attempt the feat. But in terms of ease of
use and versatility, the Super-Matic may be
the most elegant and practical stab at a self-tuning
system yet.
From the Mind of a restless
Innovator
Trev Wilkinson, the brains behind the
Super-Matic, has been tinkering with
electric guitar design for decades, and
his hardware innovations are among the
more lasting developments of the last 30
years. His Wilkinson roller nut, which
caught the guitar playing public’s eye as
a feature on Fender’s Strat Plus in 1987,
remains widely used and influential. And
his locking tuners and bridges are go-to
parts for guitarists improving and modifying their stock instruments. Wilkinson
probably could rest on his laurels at this
point. But as his ongoing work with the
Fret-King and Vintage brands attests,
Wilkinson sees room for innovations—
big and small—in even the most iconic
electric guitar designs.
On the surface, there’s little hint of
what this guitar can do. The heart of the
self-tuning system is the Wilkinson ATD
HT440 bridge, which is conventional
enough looking at first glance, but upon
closer examination reveals itself to be a
little engineering marvel. Just aft of each
fully adjustable saddle there’s a capstan that
anchors the string. Each capstan is attached
to an individual motor and gearbox. The
motor and gear box assembly interface via
a microprocessor with a hex pickup just
forward of the bridge and a tuning selector
for accessing presets.
The interface between player and the
tuning selector is itself quite unobtrusive.
There’s a very small (and at first easy-to-miss)
button mounted on the treble side of
the pickup, and on the bass side, a small
oval LCD readout that relays simple data
about preset selection, whether a note is
sharp or flat (when the built-in chromatic
tuner is in use), and system status alerts
for broken strings, battery life, and partial
tuning. The entire system runs on a 9-volt
battery, which Fret-King says will last for
up to 250 tunings.
The guitar itself is a handsome, modern
twist on a Strat profile. The two-piece
alder body has a reassuring heft—particularly
with all the onboard electronics—
but could benefit from a few smoother
body contours at the body edges, which
will occasionally give you a jab in the
ribs. The 25 1/2" scale neck with rosewood fretboard and medium-jumbo frets
is basically a comfy slim C shape, if a
little bit flattish for my tastes.
The guitar’s standard electronics
include Wilkinson WHHBZ33 offset
pole piece “Zebra” humbuckers and a
Wilkinson WHSM single-coil in the
middle position. They’re wired via a
5-position selector switch and Wilkinson
’s Vari-coil system which enables variable
splitting using the aft-most tone control,
which is arguably a less clumsy and tonally
varied approach than push-pull pot
coil tapping.
Tuning on the Fly
The Wilkinson ATD HT440 bridge isn’t
totally intuitive if you’re new to the technology,
but it’s a very streamlined system
with a minimum of controls that’s easy to
get a feel for—especially if you treat yourself
to a video tutorial from Wilkinson
himself on the Fret-King web site (
fretking.com). Once you grow accustomed to
using the master function button (which
doubles as an on/off switch and preset
selector) and learn the symbols and preset
numbers displayed on the LCD, the ATD
HT440 works almost as naturally as a
pedal tuner.
Factory presets include standard
EADGBE, Drop D, Open G, Open E,
DADGAD and GDFCDG. And setting
up the Super-Matic for any one of them is
a simple process of holding the function
button down until the number 1 appears,
clicking the button repeatedly until you
find the number that corresponds to
the desired preset, and strumming once.
You’ll hear a quick burst of activity from
the miniature motors in the bridge as
they turn the capstans, and if you have
the guitar’s volume up, the odd sound
of the strings changing pitch in unison.
Occasionally it will take a second slow
strum for the system to read, process, and
retune each note, but it rarely takes a third
strum if you’re patient and deliberate.
One of the coolest aspects of the
Super-Matic is the ability to store your
own tunings, which is also a straightforward,
if slightly more complex process
called Strum ’N’ Store. You have to find
and dial in the tuning yourself using the
onboard chromatic tuner. But once you
have the tuning in place, you hold the
button for 10 seconds to unlock the ATD
HT440 system, scroll to the preset number
you want to use and strum the strings.
Once a green light on the LCD confirms
that the tuning is stored, you depress the
button for another 10 seconds to re-lock
the system.
There are limitations to Strum ’N’
Store. There’s a two-step pitch range
limit in both flat and sharp directions
for each string. So players who favor
low tunings that drop the 6th string to
C, for instance, won’t be able to use the
preset function. The capstans can also
only handle a maximum string thickness
of .011 on the 1st string and .052 on the
6th, which covers most players, but leave
some heavy-string fans and slide players
who like fatter wire out of the mix.
No matter what the tuning, the Super-
Matic has the tone-shaping potential to
get the most out of it. The combination
of the Vari-coil system and the 5-position
switch puts a lot of sonic flavors at
your fingertips. Running the Super-Matic
straight into a Vox TB35C2 Bruno and
a Fender Vibroverb, DADGAD and
open G tunings growled aggressively
and brimmed with harmonics, especially
through the hot bridge humbucker.
Rolling off the Vari-coil control and
splitting the bridge humbucker gave the
DADGAD setting a quieter, but crystalline
quality that highlighted harmonic
detail, while open G chords kicked with
snappy Keith Richards sass.
The Verdict
The Fret-King Super-Matic does a truly
impressive number of things for a single
guitar, which should be little surprise
given the creative record of its creator.
None of the Super-Matic’s features reek
of gimmickry, though. The ATD HT440
system is smooth and intuitive once you
take a few minutes to acquaint yourself
with its rhythms and commands. And
the Vari-coil electronics and triple-pickup
array give you a million ways to highlight
the harmonic advantages of each tuning.
A lot of guitars claim to be a guitar
for every performance situation. Such
an animal may never really exist, but the
innovative, high-quality, super-playable,
and ultra-versatile Fret-King Super-Matic
comes pretty close.
Buy if...
hauling multiple guitars for alternate
tunings to gigs wears you out.
Skip if...
you have little trust in guitar innovations
past the development of
the Telecaster.
Rating...
