A collaboration honoring Grammy-award winner and guitar virtuoso Christone "Kingfish" Ingram featuring his signature humbucking pickups.
"The Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe guitar gives me a sense of comfort when I’m playing across genres; everything from blues to smooth rock, it’s all about versatility. For me, it is important for people to play other genres,” said Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. “One of my favorite features on the Tele are my signature pickups because they’re a solid option for players in all genres. Being a blues player is a beautiful thing, but it’s about more than that. I’ve always been into heavy tones from my influences like Gary Moore and various blues players like Freddy King. I hope this Tele inspires players of all genres to dig in and rock out.”
The Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe guitar has been designed to the artist’s specifications with an emphasis on power and personal flourish. The heart of the instrument is the Kingfish Signature Humbucking Pickups, custom wound for velvety lows, punchy mids and a snarling high end. The custom pickups will also be sold separately, making it that much easier for players everywhere to achieve Christone’s signature tone. Finished in mesmerizing Mississippi Night, the guitar looks as stunning as it sounds and the custom color is more than meets the eye. This mystifying shade of purple harkens back to the deep night skies Kingfish would often marvel at while growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe features an alder body. The “V”-shaped roasted maple neck gives the instrument a distinctly vintage feel and the comfortable 12” radius rosewood fretboard allows for huge bends and scorching riffs up and down the neck. A custom “K & Crown” logo on the pickup covers and Kingfish’s signature autograph on the headstock rounds out the instrument’s personalized touch.
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram | Fender Signature Sessions | Fender
Fender Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe
- The Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe features two custom humbucking pickups voiced for growling, overdriven blues-rock, delivering deep, shimmering and dynamic tones.
- The “V”-shaped roasted maple neck has a classic vintage feel and improved resonance thanks to our roasting treatment.
- An adjust-o-matic bridge allows each string to be adjusted for perfect intonation.
- The slab rosewood fingerboard offers warm vintage Fender tone, while the 12” radius is great for big bends and soloing up and down the neck.
- The mesmerizing Mississippi Night finish pays tribute to the birthplace of the blues.
- Other features include a custom etched “K” crown logo on the neck pickup cover, a custom neck plate and Kingfish’s signature on the headstock.
Optimized for a balanced sound with plenty of booty on tap, Nordstrand Audio CatPups offer classically inspired tones for any platform into which you can fit them.
This simple ceramic and steel single coil pickup utilizes a single (monolithic) steel bar and 2ceramic magnets arranged in a classic P90 style configuration. Optimized for a balanced sound with plenty of booty on tap, Nordstrand Audio CatPups offer classically inspired tones for any platform into which you can fit them.
The exact same pickups that come on their Acinonyx “Cat” bass, these were developed with an ear towards vintage character with thick and punchy lows and mids. Inspired by simple clas-sic single coils they pair simplicity of design and solid reliable tone together in a chrome-covered violin size pickup.
For more information, visit nordstrandaudio.com.
Nordstrand Audio Cat Pups Pickups
- Violin style pickup
- Loaded with 2 ceramic bar magnets
- Laser cut, fiber bobbins
- Wax-potted to contain any unruly frequency that may attempt to desecrate your desired tone
A newly designed koa wonder that packs a punch.
Incredibly easy to play. Well-balanced tone.
Not as visually stunning as other koa models.
$3,499
Taylor 724ce
taylorguitars.com
How did Taylor pull off this trick? Well, back in 2015 Taylor formed a partnership with a tonewood company called Pacific Rim Tonewoods. The collaboration strengthened the forestry stewardship projects that are always a Taylor priority. It also allowed Taylor to cut the logs themselves, leading to discovery of a supply that wasn’t as spectacularly flamed as traditional koa, but retained the sound the wood is famous for. The new wood supply enabled Taylor to build a koa instrument that sells for nearly $2,000 less than their normal koa offerings. Dubbed “select-grade,” this new crop of tonewoods is now one of the foundations of the company’s 700 series.
Koa Chameleons
In my experience, Taylor’s guitars are usually impeccably playable. Sure enough, the neck on the 724ce is comfy and fast. It feels inviting and the 1 3/4" nut width lends itself to fingerstyle. The 724ce is built around Taylor’s most popular body size, the Grand Auditorium, which in this case, features a Venetian cutaway that also opens up a lot of the fretboard for exploration. The neck is tropical mahogany and is capped with a West African ebony fretboard that goes well with the dark amber of the koa and the Indian rosewood binding. The guitar also comes with Taylor’s Expression System 2 preamp.
When I first picked up the 724ce, two things stood out. One was how light and balanced the instrument felt. The other was the finish on the body. Normally, I associate koa instruments with deep, glossy finishes, but designer Andy Powers went for an extremely thin (2 millimeter) matte finish here. It’s so thin that you can feel the pores in the wood, and the thin finish arguably adds to the instrument’s liveliness. Another feature of the 724ce is the updated V-Class bracing, which Powers tweaked a bit to make the ends a bit stiffer across the back of the guitar. And at first strum, I could hear the pronounced midrange that is a Taylor trademark as well as airy top end. Together, the tone profile reminded me a bit of a modern, midrangey dreadnought with more focus. And though it doesn’t have the headroom of a full-bodied dread or jumbo, it’s balanced in a way that would fit in with a broad range of styles. When I played a bit harder with a pick, I could sense how the koa top and, most likely, the bracing tweaks widened the dynamic range, and enhanced the guitar’s responsiveness.
The tone profile reminded me a bit of a modern, midrangey dreadnought with more focus.
Express Yourself
Taylor’s proprietary Expression System 2 preamp does a fine job of representing the 724ce’s detailed sound without enhancing the high-mid frequencies and harsh attack typically associated with undersaddle pickups. Taylor achieved this improved tone in part by moving the transducers behind the saddle. The sensors can also be adjusted with an Allen wrench, which means the pickup tone you hear isn’t necessarily the tone your stuck with.
The Expression System 2 certainly makes performance more worry free. I recently worked a stage musical production that required a fair amount of acoustic work, so I brought the 724ce and plugged into a Line 6 Helix that fed the front of house. I didn’t have much tone processing going on, but the raw sound from the board through the theatre was magnificent. I kept the guitar’s tone controls mostly flat and ended up boosting the high end just a bit to cut through the band. And overall, the Expression System 2 did an admirable job.
The Verdict
The 724ce works, sounds, and plays almost exactly as advertised. The koa tones are complex and nuanced, with a little touch of mahogany midrange and maple sparkle that add up to a practical and satisfying balance. At $3,499 it’s a long way from being a budget model, but if you're considering a koa instrument, it does allow you save a few bucks in exchange for a slightly less flamboyant look. As with all high-end tonewoods, the 724ce will likely sound much better after a decade of solid strumming. But even in its infancy, the rich tones are there.
An all-analog polyphonic amplitude synthesizer that alters the attack and decay time of any sound source without sacrificing the fidelity of the original tone.
Gloamer’s attack function provides a pick-triggered volume swell: a cinematic “slow gear” effect that is smooth and controllable with variable timing from extremely fast to very slow. The volume swell cycle can be reset at any moment by muting, allowing players to craft bowed string-like lines and chords with ease.
Gloamer also features a powerful optical compressor that can add subtle punch or extreme sustain, helping to maintain a smooth volume swell effect even with very long attack times. A Volume knob controls loudness at the peak of the attack cycle, while a master Blend control allows players to layer an uncompressed clean sound in with the volume swell effect.
Additionally, when activated, Gloamer’s Decay function allows notes to fade out once the attack cycle is complete. When the decay cycle is completed, an auto-reset function causes the attack to begin again immediately, as long as there is audio input. This allows you to create a wide range of undulating, asymmetrical tremolos at slower settings as well as pulsating stutter effects when using faster attack and decay times.
Pigtronix Gloamer | Volume Swell With Compressor | Official Demo
US MAP $279. For more information visit: www.pigtronix.com.