The building bug bit Don Bell of Bell
Custom Guitars in 1974 when he
was just 18 years old. The inspiration
was an acrylic polymer Dan Armstrong
Ampeg. And in the spirit of determined
DIY-craftsman, he decided to build his
own Plexiglas version rather than buy one.
“I wanted an acrylic polymer guitar, but I
wanted it in a Flying V body style. So to get
one, I had to build it,” says Bell. The infectious
fever to build guitars was started with
the look of Armstrong’s transparent beauty.
But after plugging in his acrylic V he heard
something very different and interesting
going on in the interaction between wood,
polymer, and pickups. That realization has
guided Bell’s work ever since.
Left: JazzBlaster Deluxe with Amalfitano PAF-style humbuckers
Right: JazzBlaster Frosty
“After working through the body configuration and developing the proprietary bonding process, I set out to make the acrylic sound better, but ended up improving the sound of the wood,” says Don Bell of Bell Custom Guitars. “I noticed my first Vs sounded brittle and thin, so putting the neck and electronics centered in the traditional tonewood bodies—swamp ash or maple—greatly improved the overall tone.” Bell explains that the audibly distinctive give and take relationship between the wood and Plexi happens because the acrylic absorbs the vibration from the wood and focuses the tone, allowing the highs to sparkle without becoming harsh or shrill. In addition, the midrange is clear and clean and free of bleed from the upper or lower registers, while the lows are more defined and less woofy than on a solid wood guitar. “In effect, the acrylic wings act as a compressor,” says Bell. “The overall result of the wood/acrylic fusion and the set neck of a Bell Custom Guitar is long sustain and a sharper, more focused tone.”
Bell acknowledges that the visual peculiarities of his guitars draw players in—just like it did to him ’74. But given the chance to play and hear one, he believes players remember the guitar’s vintage tone rather than its 2001: A Space Odyssey look. “Ever since I got serious about building, my philosophy has been that I want guitarists to experience a difference in tone and a difference in the synergy and feedback between guitar and player that is not there with an all wood guitar,” says Bell. “Strum a traditional guitar without amplification and then strum a Bell—you will hear the difference… [laughs] and just imagine its presence and how it feels when it’s amplified.”
Left: JazzBlaster with Amalfitano P-90s
Right:JazzBlaster Deluxe with lit LEDs
Bell Custom Guitars’ newest see-through creation is the JazzBlaster. Shown here with a translucent red and yellow finish, it features a string-through, swamp ash body with acrylic wings, a 22-fret, single-piece mahogany neck with Bell’s signature neck profile that, according to Bell “is similar to a ’60s Gibson LP that I have.” They also offer a fatter neck based on a ’58 ES-335 and custom necks are available upon request. Both models are loaded with Amalfitano pickups—the red model has vintage PAF-style units while the yellow one has P-90s—which are favored by Bell because “they are super clear and have zero mud factor, while also giving us the vintage tone we’re looking for.” Both models are equipped with 15 LEDs and have an available “frost” option in which the acrylic is blasted with small glass beads to give it a smoky look.
ToneBlaster with Amalfitano TP pickups
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This 25 1/2"-scale Tele-style model has a butterscotch swamp ash body with acrylic wings, a 22-fret rosewood fretboard, and a Wilkinson compensated bridge. Its Amalfitano TP pickups use slightly taller alnico 5 magnets and are wound to 9.0 kΩ with vintage Formvar magnetic wire that reportedly gives the guitar a more powerful, brighter musical tone. The ToneBlaster features 15 builtin LEDs, too.
SS-V and SS-E
SS series guitars (the SS-V and SS-E are shown here) have a 24 3/4" scale, a maple body with acrylic wings, and a 22-fret mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, and are less expensive than ’Blaster models. They also have a Tune-o-matic bridge and Kent Armstrong vintage-style humbuckers, and come with gold or chrome hardware.
SS-V with Kent Armstrong humbuckers
SS-E with Kent Armstrong humbuckers
Pricing and Availability
Pricing for each model varies depends on the amount of customization and aesthetic extras someone may prefer. The JazzBlasters are set at $3409 (including the frost option), the ToneBlaster at $2995, and the SS models street at $1299. Bell Custom Guitars also doubles as a repair shop, so “as long as requests are reasonable, there are no limitations.” Currently, Bell Custom Guitars’ current wait time is about two months or longer depending if they’re beginning a new batch of guitars—they tend to make them 10 at a time for any given model.
bellcustomguitars.com
Most guitarists can remember the moment that inspired them to pick up the instrument. For my father, seeing Roy Rogers on television when he was 4 years old planted the seed, and seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show watered, fertilized, and provided sunshine for that seed to grow. The combination of how cool Roy Rogers looked and the beautiful sounds the Fab Four made nurtured a love of guitar and music that has never left him. For me, what really got my blood pumping was seeing a power-chord riff being beaten into a cherry-red Gibson Explorer by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Not only did it sound great, but he also just looked so cool with that guitar. For me, that shape instantly became associated with razor-sharp tone. Over the years, my musical tastes have spread much, much further than ’90s industrial, but the image and the sound of that guitar have been stuck in my head ever since.
Don Bell of Bell Custom Guitars obviously has the same fascination with that body style, as evidenced by his SS-E and SS-ER guitars. His instruments have already attracted the attention of such players as Steve Stevens, who currently has his Bell Custom Jazzblaster with him on the Billy Idol European tour. I got the chance to give Bell’s SS-ER, one of his coolest-looking creations, a rundown recently. From the time that I spent with it, I came away very impressed.
Working in Wood and Acrylic
The defining feature in Bell’s striking production line is obviously his use of acrylic body wings. His original creations sported bodies made entirely of acrylic, but he wasn’t satisfied because he felt they sounded thin. He thought he’d make the acrylic sound better by adding a wood core (the SS-ER’s is mahogany, but certain Bell models use maple), but he says the acrylic actually made the wood sound better.
“Mahogany is normally dark sounding,” Don explains, “and the acrylic helps take that muddiness out of it without losing the essential tone. The highs become clearer and less brittle sounding, and the lows become tighter—almost like putting a compressor on a bass drum so it doesn’t have that flab in it.” The 24.75"-scale SS-ER’s mahogany core is stained a deep cherry, and it connects to the 22-fret neck with a traditional glued-in joint rather than the neck-through construction you might expect. But the rest of the setup—stop tailpiece, Tune-o-matic bridge, two volumes and a tone knob—is pretty by-the-book. Pickup-wise, the SS-ER is outfitted with a set of Amalfitano PAF-style humbuckers, which have been potted to reduce feedback.
Right out of the case, the SS-ER was set up perfectly and had spot-on intonation. The action was high enough to dig into the strings with minimal buzz, but low enough to facilitate quick runs up and down the neck. I really liked the feel of the neck taper, which was akin to the ’60s slim taper on my ’78 Les Paul Custom, but slightly thicker. As for other facets of playability, Explorers have never been known to be lightweight, and neither is the SS-ER. The added weight from the acrylic—which is heavier than mahogany—puts the guitar at 9.5 pounds. Luckily, unlike a lot of instruments with unusual body shapes, it balances well.
Flamboyant in All the Right Ways
So here comes the million-dollar question, “How does it sound?” I’m happy to report that not only does the SS-ER excel at the high-gain rocking that its flamboyant aesthetics practically demand, but it also offers some pretty unique tones. The addition of the acrylic wings seems to add high frequencies that are very noticeable and smooth sounding. Through a Friedman Naked 100-watt head and a 4x12 cab, I really dug how highs and upper mids sustained well without any ice-pick stabs. The materials compliment each other very well, with the mahogany balancing the bright acrylic tones with plenty of warmth and a lush, resonant midrange.
I was rather surprised to find that the moderate-output Amalfitano humbuckers pumped out such a punchy, powerful sound—especially with ratings of 8.5k (bridge) and 8k (neck). “With the acrylic added, the body is so much more resonant that it actually makes the pickups sound more powerful than they are,” explains Bell. Their balance and clean, crisp, detailed note definition all the way across the fretboard was one of the guitar’s best features. I love the sound of a great neck humbucker, in particular for clean tones, and the vintage-voiced neck pickup yielded some fantastic sounds with a nice, spongy feel. It was hard to get a bad sound out of the guitar, yet easy to achieve great traditional tones with impressive high-end response.
The Final Mojo
For lovers of this classic body style, the Bell Custom SS-ER is hard to beat. Some players might prefer the warmer, more conventional tones and feel of the original, but those looking for an added twist will find the SS-ER to be a great alternative—especially with its relatively affordable street price of $1199. Its weight might be a concern for some, but if you’re willing to overlook that in order to wield a well-built guitar with wonderfully unique tones, the Bell Custom SS-ER shouldn’t fly underneath your radar.
Buy if...
you’re looking for a vintage look and sound with a little more high-end bite and a visual twist.
Skip if...
you’re committed to single-coils or need a lightweight guitar.
Rating...
Street $1199 - Bell Custom Guitars - bellcustomguitars.com |
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