Just too easy to buy guitars these day...just point and click.
This arrived last Friday--sort of a versa-strat. Seems like I played one in a shop a few years ago and thought it was interesting, and then this came along. It's in
near mint condition in an SKB case. This is a 97, but it's also in the 98 catalog.
http://photos.yahoo.com/gkelm
- Alder body (vintage burst)
- Quartersawn (lightly flamed) neck
- Neck is a strat-like profile (narrow board and chunky back), but multi-radius. 98 catalog says "6 extra steps of hand finishing" (a la Prestige)...it's smooth!
- Semi-AANJ
- Wilkinson, Sperzels, and graphite nut
- 5-way with push-pull tone for coil tap
- JL/Daisensei pickups
Construction is excellent...one of the tightest neck joints I've ever seen. Have not been able to find out much about the pups except from Ibanez literature, but I've been impressed with the sound. They are supposed to be designed/constructed like a real single coil in the single coil section...and in SC mode they are much quiter than most traditional SCs.
With the coil tap pulled you get the outer coils of the buckers, and the nice part is that the middle position is wired for both outside pups rather than the middle (tele-ish in coil tap mode). Great SC tones, but what was surprising was the humbucker crunch...better than expected, bright, fat and lively.
Nice feeling for a more strat-like guitar. The Wilkinson is smooth, but it's no Edge when it comes to dive bombing...it's fine for texture warbling. The only problem I've had it the high E occasionally pops out of the nut when I'm doing percussive open E chops.
Aesthetically, I'm not overwhelmed...never cared for this headstock or pickguard shape, but the tone is great (nice diversion from RGs and Ss). Not bad for less $$ than you'd pay for a used Mexican
Fender strat.
Greg
