I just wanted to say how much I truly enjoy Premier Guitar. In fact, I liken my monthly experience to a fine meal at an expensive restaurant. Shawn Hammond serves up a light (but tasty) appetizer. This whets my appetite for a several course dinner: from Dirk Wacker and his bouquet of Strat mods, to Paul Gilbertās demi-glazed zestiness, to the many gear reviews, nestled in a provocative sauce. My mouth absolutely drools when feasting on the eye candy of Vintage Vault. I cherish each page, which usually takes me all month. The final bite is savored with John Bohlingerās Last Call. After feasting on such a bountiful plate, I step away from the table, satisfied. My next monthās magazine arrives shortly thereafter, repeating the delight. Thanks for the grub, bub! Bon Appetite!
āTim Woosley
Lincoln, Nebraska
Thanks for the kind words, Tim. Weāre staying busy in the kitchen, testing new recipes and debuting new dishes, so be sure to come back hungry soon!
Online Appreciation
I wanted to thank you all for the great
magazine. Iāve been a [guitar magazine
name] subscriber for years, but more out
of habit at this point than anything else.
Your content is far superior and the way
that you have migrated to the internet is
just awesome. I love the weekly emails and,
even after 26 years of playing, I find that
my playing has improved because of your
magazine. Access to PDF lessons and audio
downloads makes it very easy to learn
something new. Itās like having a month
of guitar lessons for just a few dollars each
month. You guys get it!
All the best,
āJoe in South Carolina
Joeācongrats on continuing to improve your playing after all those years, weāre happy to be a part of it.
My job sucks, but every Tuesday I look forward
to the recent Rig Rundown!
āSteve, via PremierGuitar.com
Hey Steve. Sorry your job is a bummer, but keep powering through the workweek, and weāll keep rolling out new Rig Rundowns for your enjoyment. Look for new ones from John Petrucci, Paul Gilbert, and Yngwie Malmsteen online now!
Inspiration Station
Hi Shawn! Thank you for the āHaving Fun
Yet?ā piece [Tuning Up, October 2011].
Strange place to find an insight in life. I
have been thinking the same way, only
youāve gotten further in your thoughts.
I am doing so much better now, and my
friends tell me I look happier. Also, it helps
me to achieve my goals betterāI mean the
real ones. And that makes everything easier.
Youāre brave. Made my Friday.
Regards & best wishes,
āMikael
via email
PG editor in chief Shawn Hammond responds: "Thanks so much for your email, Mikael! I'm glad my half-baked musings struck a chord. Congrats on your progress!"
Martinās Mystery Pickguard
Hi! I am reading your
latest issue and noticed
the Vintage Vault article
on the Martin D-28
[November 2011]. The
photos show a nonstandard
or user-added
pickguard mounted
above the fretboard, but
the article makes no mention of this. It may
seem obvious to seasoned guitar vets, but
a newbie may mistake this for the way all
1937 D-28s should look. You should have
mentioned it or found a different standard
Martin to show in the photos. Thanks!
āJim Hartway
Varysburg, New York
Laun Braithwaite from Daveās Guitar Shop responds: āWe think the extra pickguard is probably not original, but there is some chance it is. It is made of the same material and beveled the same way as the regular pickguard. Its color and patina also match, but we canāt be 100 percent sure. Because we were unsure, we didnāt mention it. Since these articles are about guitars in Daveās collection, we donāt always have more than one example to choose from. We thought this guitar was interesting and historically significant, even though it has one questionable feature.ā
Great Minds
I met [Premier Guitar director of business
development] Jessica Sullivan at the Seymour
Duncan User Group Day in September and
told her how much I liked your magazine.
She asked me what I would like to see as an
article, and I told her an article on how to
use equipment in different waysālike how
to set up a delay pedal for different [uses].
I have never really owned [a delay] and I
am getting one soon. I just received the
November issue on my Android phone and
saw the article āHow to Get the Most out of
Your Delay Pedal.ā I look forward to reading
it this afternoon or evening. Keep rockinā!
āDave Richardson
via email
Hey Dave. What a cool coincidenceāwhen you relayed your request we were already working on that exact article! Enjoy getting the most out of your new purchase.
Corrections
In the November issue Table of Contents
[page 16], we miscredited the issueās
incredible cover artist, Alan Forbes. Aside
from being a great dude, Forbes is a killer
artist who has illustrated gig posters for
acts like Queens of the Stone Age, Black
Crowes, Faith No More, Dinosaur Jr., the
Mars Volta, High on Fire, and many others.
We highly suggest checking out his
work at secretserpents.com.
In the same issue, we neglected to credit photographer Rob Smith for the shots of Samantha Fishās gearbox [page 116]. We regret these errors.
Voxās Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they arenāt useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about ācinematicā effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcockās Psycho than Ridley Scottās Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
āRadical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.ā
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdriveāeffectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this testāa recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models canāt deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether youāre shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuitāgenerated, presumably, by the Nutube. āColor,ā in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualitiesātypical of studio EQsāthat enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impactās use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. Itās easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. Thatās a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agentāadding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like youāve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impactās controls arenāt totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag modeās compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and itās useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they donāt always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedalās sometimes studio-like personality.
Guitarist Dave Harrington concedes that while there are a few mile markers in the music that he and musician Nicolas Jaar create as Darkside, improvisation has been the rule from day one. The experimental electronic trioās latest record, Nothing, which released in February on Matador, was the first to feature new percussionist Tlacael Esparza.
Taking the record on tour this year, Darkside stopped in at Nashvilleās Brooklyn Bowl, where Harrington broke down his complex signal chains for PGās Chris Kies.
Brought to you by DāAddario.
Express Yourself
Harrington bought this mid-2000s Gibson SG at 30th Street Guitars in New York, a shop he used to visit as a kid. The headstock had already been broken and repaired, and Harrington switched the neck pickup to a Seymour Duncan model used by Derek Trucks. Harrington runs it with DāAddario NYXL .010s, which he prefers for their stretch and stability.
The standout feature is a round knob installed by his tech behind the bridge, which operates like an expression pedal for the Line 6 DL4. Harrington has extras on hand in case one breaks.
Triple Threat
Harringtonās backline setup in Nashville included two Fender Twin Reverbs and one Fender Hot Rod DeVille. He likes the reissue Fender amps for their reliability and clean headroom. Each amp handles an individual signal, including loops that Harrington creates and plays over; with each amp handling just one signal rather than one handling all loops and live playing, thereās less loss of definition and competition for frequency space.
Dave Harringtonās Pedalboards
Harrington says he never gives up on a pedal, which could explain why heās got so many. Youāre going to have to tune in to the full Rundown to get the proper scoop on how Harrington conducts his three-section orchestra of stomps, but at his feet, he runs a board with a Chase Bliss Habit, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV, Eventide PitchFactor, Eventide H90, Hologram Microcosm, Hologram Chroma Console, Walrus Monument, Chase Bliss Thermae, Chase Bliss Brothers AM, JHS NOTAKLĆN, two HexeFX reVOLVERs, and an Amped Innovations JJJ Special Harmonics Extender. A Strymon Ojai provides power.
At hip-level sits a board with a ZVEX Mastotron, Electro-Harmonix Cathedral, EHX Pitch Fork, Xotic EP Booster, two EHX 45000 multi-track looping recorders, Walrus Slƶer, Expedition Electronics 60 Second Deluxe, and another Hologram Microcosm. A Live Wire Solutions ABY Box and MXR DC Brick are among the utility tools on deck.
Under that board rest Harringtonās beloved Line 6 DL4āhis desert-island, must-have pedalāalong with a controller for the EHX 45000, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Dunlop expression pedal, Boss RT-20, a Radial ProD2, and another MXR DC Brick.
This storyās author played this Belltone B-Classic 3 and found its neck instantly appealing, the tremolo capable of taking abuse and staying in tune, and the FilterāTron pickups possessed of hi-fi clarity. Also, the sky burst metallic finish is pure eye candy.
Thatās where guitar-by-menu comes in. Think of it as BuildāA-Bear for guitar players, but louder and with cooler options, like a coral pink sparkle finish or a trapeze tailpiece. A coterie of manufacturers offers such services, some with online pull-down menus that cover everything from pickups to, well, all that goes into a guitar. And the advantage here is that no particular expertise other than knowing what you love to play and why you love to play it is required. You dig a Tele or a Jazzmaster or an SG or a Firebird from a certain era, but want a specific bridge or pickup combination, a ā50s or late-ā60s neck, a finish not available in production models? No problem. Or maybe you crave something a tad more distinctive, with a non-traditional body shape, no headstock, and a finish that draws from the color palette of Van Goghās The Starry Night. All you gotta do is ask ā¦ or, rather, pick, click, order, or email, perhaps with a phone call to confirm the details.
We spoke to a clutch of large and smaller guitar companiesāBelltone,Ā Kiesel, Fender, and Gibsonāto see how they do it.
The Belltone Way
āI was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,ā says Belltone founder Steve Harriman. āI changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever.ā
Like former Gibson CEO James Curleigh, Belltone Guitars founder Stephen King Harriman was an apparel executive with Perry Ellis before starting the Florida-based company in 2016. But the gig heās had since junior high school is guitarist.
āI was always the guy who had to tweak the guitar no matter what it was,ā Harriman says. āI changed out the pickups, I changed the pickguards, tuners, whatever. I always had to make what I was playing, whether it was a Les Paul or a Tele, unique, so it would be personally mine.ā
Initially, Belltone offered modded versions of Les Paul- and Telecaster-style guitars, but in 2019 he reframed his business, designing an ergonomically contoured pear-shaped body and distinctive 6-on-a-side headstock as a foundation, and establishing a group of craftspeople to bring his solidbody B-Classic One, B-Classic Two, and B-Classic Three variations to life.
Today, Belltone guitars are made for players looking for a similar mix of the fresh and the familiar, at $2,680 to $3,129, depending on appointments. And the range of appointments is impressive. Letās start with the templates. The Classic One has a flat top with edge binding, an alder body, a rounded tapered neck pocket, the companyās signature Devilās Tail bridge and angled switch-control plate, reverse-dome tall-boy knobs, and a 12" compound-radius neck (held on by four bolts), with 22 medium-jumbo frets. In contrast, the Classic Two has all of the above, except there are arm and body contours with no binding, and the Classic Three offers the same plus Belltoneās patented Back-Lip Tremolo System and top hat controls.
āIām inspired by a lot of ā50s and ā60 car designs for the elements of my guitars.āāBelltoneās Steve Harriman
Then, thereās a rabbit hole of options. There are 36 finish choices, with 10 āburstsāincluding gorgeous black cherry burst, sky burst metallic, and lemon burst shadesārequiring an upcharge of $40. There are varied pickguards to choose from within Belltoneās distinctive āDecoā version, which comes in black, white, and brown tortoise. There are four neck combinations (standard C and ā59 roundback profiles, with maple or rosewood fretboards), four tuner options (locking tuners from Belltone, Sperzel, and Kluson, plus ratio tuners), and a set of any-gauge Stringjoys. And the selection of pickups is truly impressiveā36 in all, from TV Jones, Benson, Rio Grande, Mojo, Lindy Fralin, Porter, McNelly, Righteous Sound, Gabojo, and the newly added Brickhouse Tone Works. And within those selections are standard and hum-cancelling P-90s, stacked humbuckers, PAF humbuckers, regular and noiseless single-coils, multiple FilterāTron variations, and more. Further, via Belltoneās Tone-Sure program, if a customer feels theyāve made the wrong call on pickups after playing their guitar a while, Belltone will swap them out at no charge save for covering shipping and the additional cost of pricier units.
āIām inspired by a lot of ā50s and ā60 car designs for the elements of my guitars,ā Harriman attests. āIf you look at my bridge, for example, itās got kind of a tailfin look to it. For me, guitars need to not only play well and sound great, but look cool. Also, everything is designed by me and is machine-tooled. My bridge is machine-tooled aluminum with rounded contours, as your palm can get roughed up on the old-style stamped ashtray bridges. I take all the things that make players happy into consideration.ā Including sturdy and handsome faux-alligator-skin cases.
A deliberative buyer could spend weeks contemplating all of Belltoneās options before pushing the āsubmitā button, and then, instead of being invoiced, they are contacted directly by Harriman to review it all again before his luthiers get to work.
Gibsonās Made to Measure
One of Gibsonās Made to Measure fantasies: an SG with three humbuckers in a crimson sparkle finish.
The 131-year-old Gibson companyās Made to Measure (MTM) program is a bit more conservative ā¦ but only if youād call a hot-crimson-sparkle SG with three humbuckers, a burgundy Les Paul Standard with a full-fretboard vine inlay, a champagne-pink-sparkle Les Paul, or a 3-pickup Firebird with a P-90 in the middle conservative.
There are two ways to initiate an order for an MTM guitar. You can fill out the online questionnaire on the Gibson Custom Shopās Made to Measure page or stop by the Nashville or London locations of the Gibson Garage in person. I visited the Nashville Garage for this story, where I spoke with Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate youād likely encounter if you walked into the Music City shop. They brought a clutch of recent MTM examples. And a wall of the MTM room was covered in slabs of wood, available for the choosing, and various bridges, tuners, pickups, and other parts for inspection and selection. Of course, some of the on-location fun is speaking with MTM program leaders like Boyer and Wainscott, who love guitars as much as you do and are happy to swap stories.
Whether by email, which will likely be followed up by a call from Boyer, or in person, the conversation that starts a MTM order begins with questions about body style, neck preference, electronics configuration, and the finish type and treatment.
āOn the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want.āāGibsonās Dustin Wainscott
At the Gibson Garage Nashville, Dustin Wainscott, director of the Made to Measure program, and Matt Boyer, the sales associate in charge of MTM at that location, brandish a pair of custom-ordered instruments.
Photo by Ted Drozdowski
Essentially, any Gibson body currently in production and most historic appointments from that modelās historyāand some from other compatible Gibson modelsācan be used for an MTM order. After selecting the white wood, as slabs are called in lutherie, āfiguring out the pickup layout, the neck profile, and the tailpiece you want is the next step,ā says Wainscott. āThen you get into the electronics and the look of the guitar: pickup selection, coil-splitting, what color or finish hardware, a glossy or flat finish, any Murphy Lab aging.
āNon-proprietary parts can sometimes be a roadblock. Typically, weād use our pickups, for example, so if somebody makes a request for a pickup outside of Gibsonās, I try to steer them toward something we have thatās similar. Youāve got to play in the Gibson sandbox.ā Stepping outside of historic model-design parameters, which would require re-engineering, is also a no-fly. That means donāt ask for a Les Paul with a Firebird neck, or an Explorer with a 3-on-a-side headstock. That said, there is a lot of wiggle room within the companyās catalog, and āon the cosmetic side, we can go as far as you want to, with any color or finish you want,ā adds Wainscott. Personalized headstocks are also a popular option.
A Made to Measure orderās price starts with a $500 charge on top of a modelās current tag, and can increase depending on the complexity of wiring, finish, inlays, etc. Wainscott notes that about 30 percent of the Custom Shopās business is Made to Measure.
āWe also do a lot of recreating of models youāve seen in the past that arenāt available now,ā adds Boyer. āSo, we canāt make a Jimmy Page Les Paul with his name on it, per se, but if you want a Les Paul Custom with three pickups, a Bigsby, a 6-position switch, and all that, we can do it for you.ā
Kieselās Family Style
Kiesel can get as rad as you wanna be, including characterful flourishes like this naturally figured wood with pools of radiant blue finish and an organically striking neck.
Kiesel Guitars has essentially always been a custom-order builder, even if its name and line of business has evolved. The L.C. Kiesel Company was founded in 1946 by Lowell Kiesel as a manufacturer of pickups he sold from the back pages of magazines. As it grew, he renamed it after two of his sons, Carson and Gavin, as the well-known brand Carvin, which became famous as a maker of quality guitars, amps, and instrument parts. In 2015, the company split, Lowellās son Mark and his son Jeff established the guitar-building operation under the Kiesel name. Today, thanks to their high-caliber construction and endorsees like Allan Holdsworth, Devin Townsend, Craig Chaquico, Jason Becker, and Johnny Hiland, the company makes more than 4,000 custom-order guitars a year.
āWe have four types of construction: bolt-on, set-neck, set-through, and neck-through,ā explains VP Jeff Kiesel. The company also offers the unusual choice of nine different headstocks, which most manufacturers limit to one style as part of branding, and sans-headstock models, which Kiesel began making in 2012 with the debut of its Allan Holdsworth model. All Kiesel headstocks have an 8 1/2-degree tilt, to create a steeper string angle over the nut, which can potentially improve tone and sustain.
At work on a body in the Kiesel factory, which produces about 4,000 custom-order guitars annually.
āWeāre appealing to everybody because we do so many different things.āāJeff Kiesel
āWe never build the headstock separate from the neck and then scarf joint them ināitās all one piece,ā Kiesel adds. Necks are also quarter-sawn, with a two-way truss rod, dual carbon-fiber reinforcement rods, stainless steel frets, and Luminlay side dots.
After that, ordering a Kiesel is all about options. There are 56 models, including signatures, to choose from. Once you select a model on the companyās website, youāre taken to a page that includes a builder menu. Kieselās lowest-priced models, including the Delos, start at $1,649, while the top-priced, flagship K-Series model starts at $4,399.
The Aries, one of Kieselās most popular guitars, starts at a base of $1,699 with a bolt-on neck and has a menu that includes, under general options, right- or left-hand orientation; the choice of 6, 7, 8, or 9 strings; multiscale necks; and 25 1/2", 26 1/2", or 27" scale lengths. Under body options, you can select beveled or unbeveled edges, and eight different body and 16 different top woods. There are more than 80 finishes to choose from, and 14 variations on the Kiesel logo. The neck options are equally rich, with five fretboard radius selections plus choices for neck wood, three neck profiles, inlays, truss rod covers, and more. The electronic options boast four pickup configurations, five different Kiesel neck and bridge pickup models, and additional alternatives. Itās easy to get lost in the woods, but when you emerge, an image of your guitar with all its appointments, generated as you make your choices, is waiting for you.
āOur lead time is seven to 12 weeks,ā Kiesel says, āand we offer a 10-day trial period unless somebody gets too wild on their options.ā Anyone ordering a guitar is welcome to phone the company to talk over their order, and Kiesel highly recommends that first-time buyers call.
While Kiesel Guitars once had a reputation as a shredder-axe factory, Jeff Kiesel explains thatās changed over the past decade. āOur demographic is not set anymore,ā he shares. āWeāre appealing to everybody because we do so many different things. We can build a very classy jazz-style neck pickup on a semi-hollow guitar that you can play some amazing Frank Gambale licks on. And then we can turn around and build a guitar that will do some really technical modern metal, like Marc Okubo. We can build really wild or really classy, and thatās created so much growth within our company.ā
Fenderās Mod Shop
Ted created this ādream Stratā with a silverburst finish, noiseless single-coils, and a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge using Fenderās Mod Shop online tool.
Like Gibson, Fenderās Mod Shop is about personalizing classic templatesāin this case, the Strat, Tele, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, P and J basses, and Acoustasonic Telecasters and Jazzmasters. And while the program was birthed in 2014 as the American Design Experience, it evolved into the Mod Shop and has continued to improve, most recently with an update this April that made the online menu easier to use and added more options.
āWe know that 80 percent of customers will be loyal to brands where they can personalize and customize,ā says Shannon Stokes, Fenderās VP of eCommerce. āSo the whole online user experience has been finessed. Itās much easier to navigate on both desktop and mobile. You move through it choosing the orientation of the guitar, the finish ā¦ everything through the pickguard, the hardware.ā
Justin Norvell, Fenderās VP of product, observes, āThis is a playground, and youāre able to just mess around and see what appeals to you. We allow people to save their configurations to PDFs, and they can share them and send them out,ā akin to trading cards. āThereās an exponential number of people that might sit on their favorite design for a year before they actually place an order.ā Some hardcore fans buy multiple variations of a favorite-style guitar over time, ābecause you can engrave the neck plate, collect multiple finishes, and other cool stuff. This is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too,ā he adds.
Fenderās Justin Norvell with his own dream machine: an American Professional Jazzmaster in mystic seafoam.
āThis is an area where selection runs wild for lefties, too.āāFenderās Justin Norvell
āWhatās amazing to me,ā says Shannon Stokes, Fenderās VP of eCommerce, āis the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.ā
The cost of a Mod Shop guitar is an upcharge of several hundred dollars, with certain customizations increasing the tab. I decided to jump in and outfit a Strat, with a base price of $2,085, to my taste. After selecting the right-hand playerās orientation, I chose an alder body with a silverburst finish from a palette of nearly 50 colors and wood offerings that also included chambered ash, mahogany, and roasted pine. For the neck, I went with solid rosewood with Fenderās deep-C profile. Eight maple variations were also available. That neck option automatically led me to a rosewood fretboard, and then I hunted through 16 pickup configurations before stopping at the Generation 4 Noiseless Stratocaster set. I opted for a 4-ply black pearl pickguard, and aged white plastic controls and pickup frames. Next, from three bridge choices I tapped a 2-Point Deluxe Synchronized Tremolo Bridge. Chrome Fender strap lock buttons would do the job, since Iāve had un-strap-locked guitars fall to the stage at gigs in years past. For strings, a set for .010s, and the only case option is deluxe molded plastic with a fuzzy interior. Total cost: $2,175, which is not bad for those modest-but-swell appointments. I also downloaded a PDF, so you can see what I designed. Unhappy with the purchase? It can be returned within 30 days for a refund or exchange, plus shipping.
Thereās about a half-dozen builders in the Mod Shop, but workers from the normal production line can be called in when there is an uptick in commissions, Norvell explains.
āWhatās amazing to me,ā says Stokes, āis the number of people ordering black, white, and sunburst. I love the satin orange because itās vibrant, different. I would think the rarer colors would be the thing.ā But players often look for instruments that are evocative of classic guitars theyāve seen. And 6-string dreams do come in all shades.
