
Wu-Lu favors Fender guitars for their bolt-on necks, and runs them through a thick layer of fuzz before they’re channeled through various amps, including a Roland JC-120.
On Loggerhead, Miles Romans-Hopcraft chops and dices his own improv jam sessions—sampling his personal archives to create a new synthesis of hip-hop, jazz, grunge rock and more, all wrapped in a punk ethos.
South London artist Miles Romans-Hopcraft works under the moniker Wu-Lu. His pseudonym is a play on the Amharic word for water, wuha, but modified to avoid confusion with the Busta Rhymes track, “Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check.” It’s a fitting handle, too, in that, like water, it’s indicative of Wu-Lu’s form-fitting, genre-fluid adaptability.
Romans-Hopcraft lives at the intersection of hip-hop, free improv, and grunge—imagine a Frankensteinian mashup of DJ Shadow and Slipknot, but looser—and crafts songs built from the lo-fi samples he rips from his extensive personal archive of tapes, mostly of open-ended jam sessions, that he then uploads to an Akai MPC sampler and drum machine.
South London—the triangle of Brixton, New Cross, and Lewisham, which sits south of the touristy city center along the River Thames—looms large in Romans-Hopcraft’s world. Owing, in part, its musical pedigree to the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance located a stone’s throw from the New Cross Gate tube station, the neighborhood is the epicenter of the city’s vibrant and bustling new music scene. It’s also Romans-Hopcraft’s home turf.
Wu-Lu - South (Official Video) ft. Lex Amor
“It just happened that everyone happened to be in Lewisham somehow,” he says, marveling at the near miracle of growing up in the right place at the right time. “I went to the studio, and I saw Nubya Garcia [critically acclaimed saxophonist and bandleader], Joe Armon-Jones [keyboardist for Ezra Collective, Nubya Garcia], and Oscar Jerome [solo artist] up there, and I was like, ‘What are you lot doing up here? My grandma lives here, and my auntie lives around the corner. That’s why I’m here.’ Lewisham is a far part of South London to be in, but people are here because it’s cheap to live. Before my generation came through, there was a whole instrumental scene in South London with bands like United Vibrations, Polar Bear, and Acoustic Ladyland. A lot of people outside of South London started taking notice of what was going on and a lot of it gets coined as the ‘South London Jazz Scene,’ but the way I see it, it’s just instrumental music: people using their talent to be able to improvise in a feeling that they have.”
Romans-Hopcraft’s rich musical background is more than a matter of just living in the right neighborhood. His father is trumpeter Robin Hopcraft (most recently a member of Soothsayers, but with an extensive history playing Afrobeat, reggae, and jazz), and he’s also got an identical twin brother, Ben, who’s an accomplished artist as well (formerly Childhood, and now Insecure Men, Warmduscher, and something in the works under Sean Lennon’s direction). Plus, he’s closely associated with a coterie of artists like songwriter and guitarist Lianne La Havas, saxophonist Garcia, Black Midi drummer Morgan Simpson, and many others.
“A lot of people outside of South London started taking notice of what was going on and a lot of it gets coined as the ‘South London Jazz Scene,’ but the way I see it, it’s just instrumental music: people using their talent to be able to improvise in a feeling that they have.”
LOGGERHEAD, Romans-Hopcraft’s full-length debut, is an amalgamation of his experiences and aesthetic. “South,” the album’s lead single, is a slow crescendo that layers an acoustic guitar, raw hip-hop groove, and dub-style vocals before finally exploding at the chorus with a bloodcurdling scream (and featuring an outro rap from Lex Amor). “Times,” featuring Simpson, could, at points—both texturally and, maybe, because the Big Muff features so prominent—be at home on a Dinosaur Jr. record, if not for the tight, groove-centric drumming. And the eerie and melodic “Broken Homes” is a nuanced showcase for Wu-Lu’s songcraft, although, again, buried under layers of feedback and noise.
The whole album is like that. Intense, overwhelming, and constructed from scratch through an arduous process of scrolling through files and tapes, finding bits—be those inspired jams or someone dropping a cymbal—and then, slowly, honing those into complete, evocative, emotional masterworks.
“It might not even be part of a song,” Romans-Hopcraft elaborates about his crate-digging approach to samples. “It might be a drum break, or it might be something that was recorded on the wrong mic. It might be that I was playing guitar, ran into the control room, fiddled around, and when I listened to it later, discovered that when I put down my guitar, I was touching the guitar mic—and that would then become a whole inspiration for a completely different song. I can probably still go back into all those jams and pick out different stuff and make different music from that.”
Wu-Lu’s debut album isintense, overwhelming, and constructed from scratch through an arduous process of scrolling through files and tapes, finding bits—be those inspired jams or someone dropping a cymbal—and then, slowly, honing those into complete, evocative, emotional masterworks.
For example, the aforementioned “Times” started out as a birthday jam session with Simpson. “We were playing some beats—I was playing along with him—and someone in another room was filming us on their phone and sent me the video,” he says. “I heard this little ‘weee-weee’ sound and I was like, ‘That would be a sick idea.’ Morgan was playing something similar to what that was. I listened to that video intently. I programmed a drum beat on my MPC that I thought would work, built up a whole track, and eventually decided to re-record it [with Morgan]. On that tune I played all the guitars, the bass, all the synthesizers, and everything apart from the drums. But I programmed that beat beforehand. I told Morgan, ‘This is what I want you to play, but obviously add your feel to it.’”
Sampling your personal archives has other benefits as well. “Like avoiding royalties,” Romans-Hopcraft says, maybe slightly tongue-in-cheek … but only slightly. “I once asked about using a sample for something on a mixtape and they quoted some crazy, crazy price. I was like, ‘No more of this,’ and I started sampling myself. Plus, I like being able to look through stuff. The track ‘Blame’ came from being in the studio, doing long late-night jam sessions, and then having a few hours of jams I needed to look through to see what I could pick out. I sampled things, pulled stuff out of it, and then started remixing and overdubbing.”
Wu-Lu’s Gear List
Wu-Lu often builds his compositions around an initial sample from his own jam sessions, but the feeling from that original jam session is key to the song’s final form—even live.
Effects
- Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi
- JOYO JF-01 Vintage Overdrive
- Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai
- Electro-Harmonix The Worm (wah/phaser/vibrato/tremolo)
- Boss RV-6 Reverb
Strings & Picks
- Rotosound Strings (.011–.048)
- Dunlop Tortex Green Picks .88 mm
But that freeform, loose, experimental approach ends once the song is completed. When it comes to reinterpreting those tracks live, Romans-Hopcraft plays what’s on the record. “I stick pretty loyal to the recording,” he says. “The live band setup is drums, bass, two guitars, and vocals—everyone’s on vocals—and also another drummer, but his kit isn’t a traditional drum kit. It’s like an MPC with loads of samples taken from the songs. For example, if we’re playing ‘Blame,’ that’ll be a drum break from the original track that I sliced into pieces where he can play the samples like a drum kit. It’s the original sounds, but he can play it.”
Romans-Hopcraft’s production techniques may be sample-centric and high tech, but he creates his music with inexpensive instruments and tools. “All my stuff is basically from car boot sales,” he says. A car boot sale is an English yard sale (“car boot” is British slang for “trunk”), and he’s amassed a bevy of inexpensive amps, old-school synths, and multitrack tape machines.
“All my stuff is basically from car boot sales.”
He favors Fender-style guitars, and their bolt-on necks and distinctive jangle is central to Wu-Lu’s sound. He runs them through a thick layer of fuzz, and, at times, will divvy that up between multiple amps. “I got a headphone splitter and plugged my output into that and then split my signal into like three different amps,” he says. “But the main thing I use is the Big Muff and this mini green pedal—a JOYO Tube Screamer-like pedal—that I got on Amazon for £15, which is like a high-gain pedal.”
But, more than anything, Romans-Hopcraft’s music is about the vibe. A composition may be a studio creation built up from an initial sample, but, even many iterations later, the mood from that original jam session is key.
“It might be that I was playing guitar, ran into the control room, fiddled around, and when I listened to it later, discovered that when I put down my guitar, I was touching the guitar mic—and that would then become a whole inspiration for a completely different song,” Wu-Lu says.
Photo by Machine Operated
“‘Broken Homes,’ the last song on LOGGERHEAD, is a real special one,” he says, reflecting on the song’s mood and origins. “We made that in lockdown, and it was just me, my boy Jae [Jaega Francis McKenna-Gordon] on the drums, and my boy Tag [Tagara Mhiza] on bass. We went to jam in this pub that was empty—because it was Covid lockdown—and it was half six in the morning and we were about to go to bed. But my friend Jae was like, ‘Let’s just play one more time—one more time—let’s have a vibe one more time.’ That was the beginnings of ‘Broken Homes.’ We recorded the whole thing to tape. It was a 20-minute thing that I edited down and reworked. My twin brother, Ben, helped me finish it—there were moments in it where I thought, ‘These are really good moments, but something’s not hitting’—and my brother, being a songwriter, suggested adding little ideas in how to change the arrangement to make it feel full. I was like, ‘Alright,’ and it was finished.”
That commitment to a song’s emotional, somewhat mystical, origins, coupled with a hyper-focused work ethic, is definitive of how Romans-Hopcraft operates. And, like most of his story, he also attributes that to his South London neighborhood.“
A lot of what I got from a lot of the people that I’ve met along the way is the thing I think they got out of college, which is learning how to practice,” he says about the many local graduates of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire he knows. “It’s learning how to be productive with your practicing, and that’s what I’ve applied to my own stuff, too. I’m like, ‘I’m not the greatest guitar player or bass player—I can hold my own for my own thing—but I’m going to learn how to make the MPC groove or take bits and create that into something.’ I took that and applied it to my own craft. And I had the support of all the other people around me as well.”
Wu-Lu - live from The Room
Wu-Lu and his band perform live versions of “Ten” and “Broken Homes” from LOGGERHEAD at the Room Studios in South London.
- "Captain" Kirk Douglas: From "Wheels on the Bus" to the Tonight Show ›
- 5 Funk Guitarists You Should Know - Premier Guitar ›
- Bootsy Collins: Bass from Outer Space - Premier Guitar ›
- The Roots and The Birth of Live Hip-Hop - Premier Guitar ›
- The Common Ground Between Hip-Hop and Jazz ›
Matteo Mancuso's first headline national tour of North America includes stops in major cities such as Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, and Denver, showcasing his unique talent and original sound. Don't miss the opportunity to witness this rising guitar virtuoso live in concert.
Matteo Mancuso has announced his first headline national tour of North America. The itinerary brings Mancuso coast to coast in the US, and into Canada for several annual marquee events. The tour begins on May 20 at Boston’s City Winery and wraps on June 30 at Le Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. With the on-sale being staggered, please check local box offices for on-sale details market to market.
Mancuso hails from Sicily, nestled in the Mediterranean Sea to the South of Italy. The island has always had a rich cultural heritage, from poets, writers, philosophers, and architects to painters and musicians. Born in 1996 and raised just outside the capital Palermo, the pedigree runs deep in the veins of those from the region. Had his family relocated to the US, he might be the best-kept secret in the lineage of great Italian-American players like Zappa, Vai, Satriani, Di Meola, Petrucci, and Gambale.
During the 1970s, his father, Vincenzo Mancuso, made a name for himself as a gifted session player on the domestic scene, and the young Matteo looked up to him as a primary source of inspiration. While still in high school (music), he picked up classical guitar and transverse flute. It didn't take long for everyone to understand that a child prodigy was blooming.
At the age of 12, Matteo took his first steps onto the stage at a local jazz festival. Since then, his acquaintance with live performances has seen him blossom and develop through various line-ups and collaborations with the finest local musicians, including a duo with his father, where they explore the complexities of Django Reinhart's repertoire and contemporary jazz classics.
As a multi-faceted player, either classical or electric, what is astounding is his one-of-a-kind technique and use of his fingers instead of regular picking. With an impressive tone, original sound, and humble demeanor, you have the guitarist no one has ever seen and whose talent puts him in a different league. Many of the world's most iconic, ground-breaking, and legendary players are declaring Matteo as a force to be reckoned with, from Joe Bonamassa and Steve Vaito Al Di Meola.
In 2019, Yamaha Guitars became the official endorser of his appearance at the NAMM show in Los Angeles. He was invited as a judge on the panel for the "Young Guitar Festival" in Bangkok and a masterclass tour in Russia – calling through Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Perm. In 2020, Matteo put together a new trio and began developing his solo work, pushing his compositional boundaries and original material. When the pandemic brought the world to a standstill like many, Matteo experienced difficulties as it took a significant toll on the music industry, like many others. In 2021, as soon as live gigs became possible, he hit the road as part of the new trio, culminating in two exhilarating sold-out nights at the Blue Note in Milano. The name Matteo Mancuso was beginning to reach the ears of the most prominent people in the industry and those in the know. Offers came up from the north to the deep south.
In 2022 he played at the Bremen International Festival at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica in Rome. After a short break in June last year to graduate in jazz guitar from the PalermoConservatory of Music with honors and honorable mention, he resumed touring. He shared the stage with Al Di Meola on classical guitar on the closing night of the Eddie Lang Jazz Festival and played at the Lugano Jazz Festival in Switzerland, as a guest with prog-rockers PFM and an incredible performance at the New Ross Guitar Festival in Ireland. He appeared in a major prime-time slot on Italy's national Rai TV, at the Uppsala Jazz Festival in Sweden. Finally, he rounded off the year at the Spoleto Jazz Festival back in Italy.
His debut titled The Journey features nine original songs which were recorded at Fico d'IndiaStudios Casteldaccia, Sicily, by his father, Vincenzo Mancuso – a gifted player who also played on the record and co-wrote two songs, "Polifemo" and "Blues For John." The album also features Stefano India (Bass) and Guiseppe Bruno (Drums), with additional musicians Riccardo Oliva(Bass), Gianluca Pellerito (drums,) and Guiseppe Vasapolli (Piano/Organ).
Mancuso began writing songs for the album around 2020. "I didn't really have a specific concept behind the album, but I wanted to do something that wasn't associated with only one genre, so there are some rock-oriented songs like Drop D and some modern Jazz tunes like Polifemo," he says."Drop D" was one of the first songs written for the album, which pays tribute to his teens' hard rock and prog influences such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Dream Theater. "It is a mix of typical rock and prog elements and one of the most fun songs to play live," he says.
In front of the album’s release, he shared, "I just want people to hear it," he enthuses. "Music has always been my favorite form of communication, and the thing I love about instrumental music is that there isn't a language barrier. I'm sure that people who don't usually listen to instrumental music can find something interesting from this album."
Mancuso has become one of the hottest guitarists on the planet following the release of his debut album in 2023, The Journey, which featured the singles "Samba Party," which channels the excitement and jubilation of Rio de Janeiro during carnival – but the song itself is anything but samba. Also, "Silk Road, which was dedicated to his hometown Palermo and his Arab-Norman roots and was the follow-up to the album's lead single "Drop D,"
The YouTube sensation has already adorned the front cover of magazines such as GuitarTechniques, which called him "The Hottest Guitarist on the Planet ", and Total Guitar, which hailed him as the "World's Hottest Virtuoso." He has picked up plaudits from some of the world's most iconic, ground-breaking players who are declaring Matteo as a force to be reckoned with, from Joe Bonamassa and Steve Vai to Al Di Meola. They share:
"The evolution of guitar is firmly secure in the hands of these kind of players... it's just a new level, the tone, the touch, the notes!" - Steve Vai
"An absolute talent; his improvisational ability is light years ahead. It would take two or three lifetimes. It was like when Jacko (Pastorius) came on the scene...how did he get so good and so fast?" - Al Di Meola
"All the kids are talking about it, and I blanked when answering who my new favorite guitarist is... here he is, Matteo Mancuso. I have not seen anyone reinvent like this since Stanley Jordan" - Joe Bonamassa
For more information, please visit matteomancuso.net.
Confirmed Appearances Include:
- 5/20 Boston, MA City Winery Boston
- 5/21 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Bowl
- 5/22 Ardmore, PA The Ardmore Music Hall
- 5/23 Red Bank, NJ The Vogel
- 5/24 Washington, DC The Hamilton Live
- 5/25 Cumberland, MD Allegany County Fairgrounds
- 5/27 Pittsburgh, PA City Winery Pittsburgh
- 5/28 Lansing, MI Grewal Hall at 224
- 5/29 Ferndale, MI The Magic Bag
- 5/31 Cincinnati, OH The Ludlow Garage
- 6/01 Kent, OH The Kent Stage
- 6/02 Indianapolis, IN The Vogue
- 6/04 Minneapolis, MN The Dakota
- 6/05 Milwaukee, WI Vivarium
- 6/06 Chicago, IL Garcia’s
- 6/07 Chicago, IL Garcia’s
- 6/10 Denver, CO Cervantes’ Other Side
- 6/13 Sante Fe, NM The Bridge at Sante Fe Brewing
- 6/14 Phoenix, AZ MIM
- 6/15 Tucson, AZ The Rialto Theatre
- 6/16 Solana Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern
- 6/17 Highland Park, CA Lodge Room
- 6/18 San Juan Capistrano, CA The Coach House
- 6/20 Berkeley, CA The UC Theatre
- 6/22 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater
- 6/23 Seattle, WA Neptune Theatre
- 6/24 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw
- 6/25 Victoria, BC Wicket Hall
- 6/28 Syracuse, NY Syracuse Jazz Fest
- 6/29 Buffalo, NY Electric City
- 6/30 Montreal, QC Le Festival International de Jazz de Montreal
In this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re talking all things surf rock, from reverb to tremolo picking and much more. And while “Misirlou” is undisputedly his most influential work, maybe Dale’s best records didn’t come until a few decades later.
“All the kids in all L.A. / Come to hear Dick Dale play,” or so goes the title track from Dick Dale’s Wrecking Crew-heavy 1963 album, King of the Surf Guitar. Immodest though it might seem to proclaim such a status, he was indeed at the top of the heap.
For many, Dale’s legend precedes him. His sound, first heard in a So Cal beach ballroom, created the surf guitar vocabulary and transformed the guitar universe, starting with the 1962 release of his take on the traditional song “Misrlou.” Ever the showman, he worked closely with Leo Fender developing the right gear for the gig as he played his ripping instrumentals to larger and larger audiences. He also inspired a Hendrix lyric and had a late-career renaissance thanks to Quentin Tarantino.
In this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re talking all things surf rock, from reverb to tremolo picking and much more. And while “Misrlou” is undisputedly his most influential work, maybe Dale’s best records didn’t come until a few decades later.
This episode is sponsored byTraveler Guitar.
Analog modulation guided by a digital brain willing to get weird.
Fun, fluid operation. Capable of vintage-thick textures at heavier gain settings. High headroom for accommodating other effects.
MIDI required to access more than one preset—which you’ll probably long for, given the breadth of voices.
$369
Kernom Elipse
If you love modulation—and lots of it—you can eat up a lot of pedalboard space fast. Modulation effects can be super-idiosyncratic and specialized, which leads to keeping many around, particularly if you favor the analog domain. TheKernom Elipse multi-modulator is pretty big and, at a glance, might not seem the best solution for real estate scarcity. Yet the Elipse is only about 1 1/4" wider than two standard-sized Boss pedals side by side. And by combining an analog signal path with digital control, it makes impressive, efficient use of its size—stuffing fine-sounding harmonic tremolo, phaser, rotary-style, chorus, vibrato, flanger, and Uni-Vibe-style effects into a single hefty enclosure. Many of the effects can also be blended and morphed into one another using a rotary control aptly called “mood.” The Elipse, most certainly, has many of those.
Modulator With Many Masks
Anywhere pedal hounds meet and chat you’ll encounter spirited talk about the way pedals sound relative to a certain gold standard. It makes sense. Benchmarks are useful for understanding anything. But one of the things I like best about the Kernom Elipse is how it eludes easy comparison to such standards, and how the fluidity of its controls make it sound unique. As with any review, I compared the Elipse to as many pedals as I have that are relevant. Here, that included an Ibanez analog chorus, Phase 90 and Small Stone phasers, an optical Uni-Vibe-style pedal, a Boss BF-2,Mu-Tron Phasor II clone, and more. But what made the Elipse stand out in this company was function as much as sound. Operating the Elipse with an open mind, rather than a quest to replicate another pedal’s sound, leads to intriguing, unique, and unusual tones more specialized modulators don’t always offer.
“The Elipse is pretty ambitious for an analog modulator, but doesn’t spread itself too thin.”
Three of the Elipse’s controls—speed, mix, and depth—function predictably. The latter two controls, however, change function depending on the pedal’s mood (or mode). In tremolo mode, setting the mix at noon generates complex, warbly, and elastic harmonic tremolo-like textures. At maximum, it shifts to a more binary, on/off sound akin to optical or bias tremolo. In chorus/vibrato mode, the noon position marks a 50/50 wet/dry mix of pitch shift and dry signal—the ingredients for any chorus. At maximum, the signal is 100 percent wet, yielding pure pitch-shift vibrato. The shape control, meanwhile, adjusts the LFO waveform. In tremolo mode that means moving between triangle- and sine-wave pulses. The swirl control is the wild card of the bunch. It adds big-time dimension to the Elipse in all modes. Through most of its range, it slathers slow phase on whatever modulation is already bubbling and burbling. In the latter third of its range, though, it also adds gain, and by the time you reach maximum, the output is discernibly thickened in the low-midrange zone. The gain and low-mid bump helps compensate for the perceived volume loss intrinsic to modulation. But they also excite different segments of the harmonic spectrum as you manipulate other modulation-shaping parameters—adding expansiveness as well as the thickness you might miss from vintage modulators.
Enunciation Modulation
Compared to many of the modulation pedals I used for contrast, the Elipse has a high-mid-forward voice. This frequency bias has advantages. It lends most of the Elipse’s modulation textures a clear, airy essence that keeps their character present when adding fuzz or big delay and reverb effects. It makes some modulations less chewy, but it’s also easy to imagine such textures slotting easily into a mix where some thicker analog modulators would gobble up harmonic space.
The basic EQ profile also makes it easier to probe the nuances in the “in-between” voices, living in the liminal spaces between pedal moods. When you start to play with these blended textures and various blends of drive, shape, mix, and depth, you encounter many sounds that veer from vintage templates in cool ways. Lathering on gain from the swirl control and lazy depth rates made the hybrid chorus/flange intense, dreamy, and enveloping. Similar blends of slow, heavy harmonic tremolo and rotary speaker sounded massive too.
The Verdict
The Elipse is pretty ambitious for an analog modulator, but doesn’t spread itself too thin. Players looking for one or two very specific modulation sounds might find the interrelationships between the Elipse’s controls too complex. The inability to save more than a single onboard preset without a MIDI switcher might frustrate guitarists used to all-digital pedals’ preset capabilities. Players that already have MIDI switchers in their rigs, however, could fall hard for the ability to switch between Elipse’s myriad, complex, analog-colored textures. With or without MIDI, it is an excellent analog modulator that offers colors galore.
Fabulous neck with just-right fatness. Distinctive tone profile. Smooth, stable vibrato. Ice blue metallic and aluminum look delish together.
Higher output pickups could turn off Fender-geared traditionalists.
$939
Eastman FullerTone DC’62
An affordable version of Eastman’s U.S.-made solidbody rolls with unique, well-executed features—at a price and quality level that rivals very tough competition.
Eastman’s instruments regularly impress in terms ofquality and performance. A few left my PG colleagues downright smitten. But if Eastman isn’t a household name among guitarists, it might be a case of consumer psychology: Relative to most instruments built in China, Eastmans are expensive. So, if you spend your life longing for a Gibson 335 and a comparable (if superficially fancier) Eastman costs just 20 percent less than the least expensive version of the real deal, why not save up for a bit longer and get the guitar of your dreams?
For some players, though, such brand-devotional hang ups are obstacles to getting the best instrument for the best price. Some just like having an alternative to legacy brands and models that live as dreams in a zillion other heads. As Eastman evolved as a company, they’ve paid close attention to both of those market segments—creating refined original designs like the El Rey and Romeo while keeping quality, execution, and playability at an exceptional standard. With the introduction of the FullerTone instruments, a series of Beijing-built guitars modeled after Eastman’s California-built, Otto D’Ambrosio-designed solidbodies, Eastman’s price/performance goals reach a kind of apex. Because the FullerTone guitars aren’t archtops or thinlines and use bolt-on necks, they range from just $799 (for the simpler SC’52) to $899 (for the more full-featured DC’62 reviewed here). That’s a competitive market bracket, to say the least, but Fullertone delivers the goods in ways that count to players.
Somewhere in an Alternate O.C….
You don’t need to be a certified Mensa member to suss the FullerTone’s design benchmarks. The name’s likeness to that of an Orange County locale where historically important electric guitar design took place is a less-than-covert tip of the hat. More tangible evidence of the DC’62’s Stratocaster inspirations exist in the shape of a bolt-on, 25.5"-scale neck, six-on-a-side headstock, a curvaceous double-cut body, and vibrato. (The more Telecaster-like DC’52 uses a T-style bridge and comes sans vibrato).
Many of these design nods, however, are distinguished by Eastman’s refinements. The patented neck joint, for instance, mimics that of the upmarket, U.S.-built Eastman D’Ambrosio. It employs just two screws, bolted into steel anchors in the neck itself. It’s a robust, clever design. The joint, which works in part like a long tenon, provides extra neck-to-body contact, making the effortless access to all 24 medium-jumbo frets all the more remarkable. (The fretwork, by the way, is impeccable).
“The neck’s profile will pique the interest of anyone bored with the sameness of generic, modern C-profiles.”
The neck itself—roasted maple, satin-finished, and capped with a 12"-radius Indian rosewood fretboard—uses an angled headstock design that differs from Fender convention, but the break angle is much shallower than a Gibson, which aids tuning stability. The neck’s profile, though, will pique the interest of anyone bored with the sameness of generic, modern C-profiles. Eastman calls it a medium-round profile, but that doesn’t do justice to its substance, which calls to mind Fender’s chunkier 1960s necks. It’s not a shape for everyone, and shredders and players with really petite hands might be less enthused, but it’s exceptionally comfortable, fills the palm naturally, and, at least for me, induces less fatigue than slimmer necks.
The Strat-style vibrato is a smart, functional evolution of a classic form. The arm sits securely in a rubber sleeve that keeps it precisely where you want, and the bridge itself is fixed to a substantial brass block and features individually intonatable saddles. The vibrato is so smooth and tuning stable that you will want to use it often. Really aggressive, twitchy vibrato technique can produce knocking against the body as you pitch up—at least as it’s set up at the factory. Otherwise, it’s fun and forgiving to use.
I would be remiss, by the way, if I didn’t mention how good the black limba body looks in satin ice blue metallic with a brushed aluminum pickguard. Though the DC’62 is available in black and desert sand (the latter with gold anodized pickguard), this particular combination is beautiful, elegant, and tasteful in a way that accentuates D’Ambrosio’s timeless lines.
Substantially Yours
The DC’62’s pickups are produced by Tonerider, and they include two stacked noiseless alnico 5 single-coils in the center and neck positions (measuring 7.9 ohms) as well as an alnico 2 unit, also measuring 7.9 ohms, that Eastman calls a “soapbar humbucker with gold-foil cover.” That’s a curious mash up of nomenclature. Traditionally, “soapbar” pickups are P-90s, which are single-coils, and though the gold-foil-style cover looks cool, it doesn’t lend any gold-foil-ness in terms of construction. Tone-wise it inhabits a unique place. Some aspects of its response evoke a Stratocaster bridge pickup rendered large. There are also hints of a Telecaster bridge unit’s meatiness. But of all the pickups I compared it to (at one point there was an SG, Telecaster, Wide Range-equipped Telecaster Deluxe, Stratocaster, and J Mascis Jazzmaster strewn about the room), it sounds most like a Rickenbacker Hi-Gain in an ’80s 330. That’s cool. I think Hi-Gains are underrated and sound fabulous. But the Tonerider unit is definitely not an S-type pickup in any traditional sense. The stacked single-coils, too, deviate significantly from the Stratocaster’s sonic mold. They are noiseless, as advertised, but have heat and push that make a vintage S-style pickup sound glassy and comparatively thin.
The Verdict
With a fantastic neck, smooth playability, and tuning stability that keep you glued to the instrument, the top-quality DC’62 is flat-out fun to play, which is good, given that at $899 it’s in a price class with Fender’s excellent Mexico-made Player II guitars and PRS’s superlative SE series, to name a few. But the DC’62 offers a unique palette of tones that don’t fit neatly into any box, and with a shape that breaks from tradition, it’s a competitively priced way to take sonic and stylistic paths much less trodden