Just got these pics in. Goldie is really starting to take shape now. Adam took a couple of weeks for the glue to cure between the mohagany and maple top and the ebony fretboard and maple neck, which explains the temporary hiatus of pictures on the build progress. I am SO amazed about how it’s looking!
I really love the first shot where you can see how the body was cut from the mahogany and maple billets. I’m so stoked about this!
Note that I am not affiliated with Saint Guitar Compay, but I have gotten to know both Adam and Jon (who runs their ops), and they’re a great couple of guys who are totally passionate about what they do. Be sure to drop them a line!
Pictured to the left is “Sugar,” my beloved Prestige Heritage Elite. It lists for $1800 Canadian (~$1450 US). But amazingly enough, you can get this guitar for $700-$800 on EBay!!! Click on this link to see items up for sale on EBay.
I’m absolutely amazed by this pricing! This is a guitar that has workmanship and features, not to mention sound and playability that rival boutique guitars five times its price! I’m so blown away by the prices that these are going for on the street, and it’s another reason to consider getting one of these guitars! Here are some sample clips:
Clean or dirty, this guitar sounds amazing!
Prestige Amps
Prestige also carries two tube amps, the VT-10 and VT-30. Here’s an EBay link to a VT-10 for $160!!! That’s absolutely ridiculous! Based on the price alone, I’m going to pick one of these up!!!
For those computer-based DAW jockeys, you know about IK Multimedia’s Amplitube software. I recently wrote a review of Amplitube Fender Edition, and loved it. Now I have an even bigger reason to love it, and that’s IK Multimedia’s StealthPedal which looks like an expression pedal but is actually a fully-functional, USB-powered audio interface WITH a built-in expression pedal. How friggin’ cool is that?
Folks, this thing works, and it works well, as my full review, which will be released in a few days will bear out. As an audio interface, it may not have a lot of bells and whistles, but for the home recording studio buff, this is a great, affordable, high-res audio device that can take a direct in from your guitar or pedal board, or a line out from a pre-amp to use for layering tracks.
But because the pedal has the ability to act as a controller for any “Powered by Amplitube” software or plug-in, you may not even need an amp to record your guitar parts! There are enough fantastic-sounding amp models packed into the various Amplitube packages that you’ll be sure to find a model that works for you. Plus the software effect plug-ins that the StealthPedal can control give you added tone shaping abilities.
In my impending review, I’ll have more clips to share, but here’s a “torch song” that I’ve been working on that features the StealthPedal in action as an audio interface:
Except for the drum loop, all the instruments were recorded using the StealthPedal as the audio interface. I did a line-in directly for the electric piano. For the guitar parts, the amps are both software amps! For the rhythm part I used a Fender Champ 600 with a virtual compressor rack plug-in and my Strat plugged directly into the StealthPedal. For the lead part, I plugged into my pedal board and used my Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2 overdrive, and a Hardwire RV-7 Reverb. For the amp, I used a ’59 Bassman model. Imagine that! Software that sounds this good!
I know, nothing sounds like or feels like a real amp, but the convenience and the general sound quality of these models, plus the high-fidelity of the StealthPedal isn’t lost on me. It’s a nice, compact audio solution that combined with the software, will definitely make a difference in how you approach recording guitars.
I can just imagine the heat from the flames I’d get on the forums if I said this, but this is something I just can’t hold back any longer after reading so many threads on the Ultimate Attenuator. I’ve spent a lot of time studying how different attenuators work, and I’ve come to the conclusion that despite its popularity, this is not an attenuator that I’d even consider getting, even if it’s at a reasonable price – which it isn’t. I have a lot of different reasons for not liking this attenuator, but the biggest issue to me is the fact that with the UA, the amp is no longer reacting with the speaker and vice-versa. The UA has a cheap, solid-state amplifier built into its circuitry to re-amplify the amp’s signal after it has passed through the 32 ohm fixed resistor. At that point, the speaker is interacting with the solid-state amp. How that can pass for transparency is beyond me.
Then there’s the fixed resistor. Don’t even think about running a 2 or 4 ohm output into that attenuator. You’re risking serious damage to your amp if you do that. The impedance mismatch there is so high, it has the potential to fry your power tubes or worse. As an add-on, you can get the 16/32 ohm switch, or get one of Ted Webber’s impedance matchers. But then you’ve already spent $750 – that’s just nuts!
I use the Dr. Z Airbrake which uses a rheostat type of resistor to provide variable attenuation. People have complained that at high attenuation levels it sucks tone. It does indeed, but for normal usage, just above loud conversation volume, it is very transparent, and I would daresay that it’s much more transparent than the UA because the amp and speaker are still reacting to each other as there is no “middle-man” solid-state re-amplifier.
I’m probably going to piss people off with this little rant, but so be it. I freely admit that I’m no electronics expert, but I do have the intelligence to understand a thing or two about amps, and a re-amplified attenuated signal – at least to me – isn’t going to be transparent.
Summary: Modeled after the Hamer USA Studio, this Chinese-made axe is an affordable alternative to its American cousin. Featuring a solid mohagany body and neck with flame maple top and rosewood neck, the XT Sunburst has a naturally bright voice that’s both versatile and expressive. Very nice build quality.
Pros: Sweet, gorgeous voice at mild breakup levels, but is quite comfortable doing high-gain, which is probably where it’s best applied. This would be a great starter electric guitar!
Cons: Not much inherent sustain, especially in the upper registers where the guitar seems to lose gas. Hamer headstock is huge (that’s just a personal nit)!
Tone Bone Score: 4.0 – This is not a bad guitar, and it would definitely be something I’d consider as a starter instrument for one of my kids. It’s a nice-looking and with a little work, a nice playing guitar that would be perfect for which to start out a new guitarist.
In addition to being an incredible amp builder, Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps is as much a gear slut as I am, probably more so with guitars. Recently, he made the purchase of a Hamer XT Sunburst that he let me test. I had only played USA Hamer’s in the past, so this was to be my first experience with one of Hamer’s Chinese-made guitars.
Fit and Finish
Taking the XT Sunburst out of its gig bag, I was struck by its looks. It is a very beautiful guitar, and the burst finish really accentuates the flame maple top. It is also extremely light in weight, which is a huge point in its favor. Hamer calls it an “archtop,” but it’s more of a carved top, with gorgeous lines. The body wood is made of two pieces mahogany that look like they came from different parts of the tree. It’s not bad, it’s just kind of funky looking. Overall though, the finish is quite nice.
The neck is an extremely shallow C-shape neck. It felt pretty good in my fretting hand, and made it easy to get around the neck with ease. I love the short neck butt of this guitar, which allows you to reach real high notes without first having to do hand-stretching exercises.
Playability
Here’s where the poor setup that I mentioned above came into play. The action was set pretty high, and lowering the action just a fraction immediately caused some string buzz which means that there’s a bit of a bow in the neck. I confirmed this with a quick spot check. It’s not my guitar so I didn’t want to adjust the truss rod. The high action made it difficult to move with speed across the strings. But mind you, it’s not so bad that the guitar is unplayable. I would suspect that with a good setup, this guitar has the potential to play very nicely.
Sound
Tonally, this is a very nice-sounding guitar. I just wish there was more of it. The thin body and neck don’t provide enough resonance to hold notes for very long, so if you’re looking for a guitar that will sustain for a long time, this ain’t it. The saving grace is the very beautiful voice it does have. Here’s a clip I quickly recorded:
The guitar was plugged straight into the drive channel of my Aracom VRX22. Volume was set at just the edge of breakup. The guitar was recorded dry, and I added just a touch of reverb after the fact.
Like I said, the XT Sunburst has a sweet, bright voice.
Overall Impressions
For a sub-$500 guitar, it’s not bad at all, and as a start guitar, it would be perfect. And as long as you keep your expectations aligned with what this guitar has to offer, it’ll serve you well. I did get a chance to plug it into my pedal board, and playing it through a compressor/sustainer or an overdrive pedal that adds some sustain will work wonders with this guitar. It does play nice with pedals, which is a saving grace.
I’ve been playing my Prestige Heritage Elite so much lately that I forgot how fun it was to get funky with my Strat. So this morning, I plugged my Strat into my board, switched on the Abunai 2, and found a sweet spot that would give me just a bit of grind when I played single notes with nice grit when I dug in or played chords. Then I started playing this little funky riff that I just laid down.
I just can’t get over how good this pedal sounds with any guitar! With my Strat, I’ve always tended to play it much more clean than my other guitars. The ’57 Tex Mex pickups – at least to my ears – have never sounded very good with overdrive. I’ve always felt the drive was harsh. But the Abunai 2 really smoothens out the drive, and now I’m diggin’ playing with some real grit on my Strat.
By the way, if you missed the first clip I recorded using my Heritage Elite, here it is below:
My Aracom VRX22 just loves this pedal as well. Some might argue that with such a great amp that has a fantastic overdriven sound that I should be using the natural overdrive of the amp. In answer to that, sometimes I want a completely different overdrive character than what my amp has to offer, and an overdrive pedal through the clean channel of an amp has a totally different character than the drive channel.
Also, in a home studio environment where I have to keep the volume down, an overdrive pedal allows me to get some snarling-dog overdrive without having to crank my amp. And with a pedal like the Abunai 2 that simulates voltage sag and tube compression so well, I can get that cranked amp tone at bedroom levels!
My very close friend and fellow gear slut, Peter Jagielski, has just officially launched an interesting site called Guitaraholic.com, a place where you can keep track of your ever-growing inventory of guitars – down to the nitty-gritty details. Plus, you can hook up with other buyers and sellers of various axes through the site’s “marketplace.” What sets this particular marketplace apart from the buying/selling/trading on the forums is that Peter offers an escrow service for a small fee to add a bit of insurance that no one gets screwed, and to ensure that only serious players are involved. That’s definitely peace of mind for buyers and sellers.
Since the site is fairly new, there’s not much in the marketplace at the moment, but I do know that several people have been entering their information into the Guitaraholic database; unfortunately, at this time, you can’t see other members’ axes. That will hopefully be remedied soon. You never know, but you could be perusing the guitars that are on the site, come across a very cool guitar that doesn’t happen to be in the database, and make an offer to the buyer. That would add an interesting twist, wouldn’t it?
Peter’s a great guy, and I’ve had the priviledge of knowing him for many years. I think his idea is great, and with time, and perhaps a bit of luck, the site will evolve into a busy marketplace to find some real gems! In any case, here’s a copy of Peter’s press release:
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Peter M. Jagielski, Founder
Guitaraholic
Phone: 614-578-4374
peterj@guitaraholic.com http://www.guitaraholic.com
Guitaraholic Launches New Website for Guitar Collectors, Buyers & Sellers
Columbus, OH, 05/20/2009 – Guitaraholic™ announces the general availability of its web site http://www.guitaraholic.com. Guitaraholic is a web site dedicated to guitar collectors, sellers & buyers. Membership is free. The web site’s core function is to enable guitar owners to keep detailed track of their collection, from the color of the guitar down to the type of screws holding down the truss rod cover, and everything in between, including hardware and electronics. Guitarists may also upload pictures of their guitars, which can then be used with the web site’s other major feature, the Marketplace, where members can buy and sell guitars. Many of the relevant details that a member can specify about a guitar can then be included in the guitar’s listing, thereby making it quick & easy for sellers to list a guitar, and provide vital information to potential buyers about the guitar. To sell a guitar, members need only pay a listing fee of $4 USD. To facilitate a secure transaction between buyer & seller, Guitaraholic offers an escrow service for a fee of $20 USD.
About Guitaraholic – Guitaraholic launched on a limited basis at the end of 2008 to select members of the
guitar collecting community. The web site is now available to all guitarists. Numerous upgrades are planned
through the remainder of 2009. All major web browsers are supported, but Firefox™ is recommended.
In my ever-constant search for new gear, I accidentally stumbled upon Tone Freak Effects, a little boutique effects shop in Southern California. And you know me, I DIG OVERDRIVE pedals!!! I know, I say that a lot, but I really do. When I listened to sound clips of the Abunai 2, I knew it was a pedal that I had to check out, so I contacted Tone Freak, and asked to do a review on one of their pedals. Dereck Tabata, maker of the effects, emailed me back and offered to have me review the Abunai 2. That was exactly the pedal I wanted to try out because based upon the sound clips of the Abunai 2 Dereck had on his site, it sounded absolutely killer.
Well after a moderate wait for Dereck to set up his new company and for him to create enough stock to send one out, I finally got my review pedal. I just got done playing with it for the last hour, and was so excited by its tone, that I had to release a first impressions article.
So I’ll just say this: After many years, my Tube Screamer is going to get retired for awhile. Mind you, I didn’t say I’d get rid of it. There is something about that Tube Screamer tone that I will always love. But even after just an hour of playing with the Abunai 2 and discovering just a fraction of the plethora of tones it can produce, I think I’ve found an overdrive pedal that I love as much or perhaps even more than the Tube Screamer. I know… I never thought I’d say that.
Let me give you a quick rundown of the Abunai 2…
When you first look at this pedal, you’re totally taken in by the absolutely cool purple, sparkly paint job. The picture here doesn’t do the pedal justice at all. Then you notice that it has a three knob setup, just like most overdrive pedals. Then you plug the pedal in, and that’s where the magic starts. That magic comes from the three-position mini toggle that gives you overdrive tone-shaping possibilities you never thought possible. These three positions give you very different overdrive characteristics. No matter what position you’re in, the tones this diminutive pedal produce are about the most incredible tones I’ve ever heard in an overdrive! Freakin’ awesome! Let me quickly go over each different position.
Middle
I’m starting with the middle position because that position provides that classic overdrive tone. It’s not a mid-range hump like a tube screamer. Like the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire, the full spectrum of the EQ is represented. The distortion characteristics are pretty open in this position, and the pedal reacts very much like an overdriven tube amp.
Left
This position seems to simulate distortion when the power tubes start saturating and you get just a tiny bit of compression. This lowers the volume just a tad, but it increases the sustain. But the distortion is still open – so far this is my favorite toggle position.
Right
Metal rockers will love this toggle position. This position simulates fully saturated power tubes adding tons of compression, tons of sustain, and the expected drop in volume as a result. I compensated for this by adding some clean boost to get the volume back to unity gain. This is a VERY fun position to play in (that sounds kinda kinky…). Notes just sing and sing and sing in this toggle. But the cool thing is that despite the incredible amount of compression, the pedal maintains a lot of clarity in individually picked notes.
What a great first impression! This pedal totally kicks ass, as I’m sure Dereck’s other pedals do! It’s no small wonder why Greg Howe uses a Tone Freak Buff Puff! When I do my full review, I’ll have sound clips to demonstrate the differences in the tones between the different toggle positions! Rock on!
Summary: One of the better synth guitars I’ve played to date. Great response time into the synth. Very well built and gorgeous looks. The one I played was a blue burst (not the one pictured).
Pros: Great looks and incredible acoustic sound, especially when plugged into an acoustic amp. Synth feature is VERY cool and the response is about the best I’ve played. Very light in weight – you could play this for hours and not get tired.
Cons: I was disappointed with the sustain, or lack thereof; especially in the top strings. Notes trailed off pretty quickly, no matter how hard I dug in and shook the strings. The driven sound of this guitar was a bit uninspiring, though the cleans are magnificent.
Price: ~$1900 direct
Specs: Visit site
Tone Bone Score: 4.5 – There’s a lot to like with this guitar, and if it weren’t for the lack of sustain and uninspiring drive sound, this would be a joy to play. In spite of my negatives, this is a very versatile instrument, and the mere fact that you have both guitar and synth going at the same time is simply awesome.
Several weeks ago, my good friend Dave shared with me that he had ordered a Carvin SH575 at the Carvin store while in Southern California on a trip. I had heard of this guitar from the Winter NAMM show, and was pretty excited about it. Dave finally got the guitar a couple of weeks ago, and let me borrow it so I could play around with it and do a review… so here it is! 🙂
Fit and Finish
Carvin makes some very pretty guitars, and this is no exception. A lot of care went into the details in building this instrument, and I have to say that I’m totally impressed with the build quality. The blue burst finish of the guitar I tested was quite magnificent, and everything down to the hardware was perfect.
Playability
Wow! I had never played a Carvin guitar before, and I have to say that I am incredibly impressed by how nice this guitar plays! The medium-jumbo frets are perfect, and moving around the neck is a real dream. Your fingers glide very easily over the strings (though I have to admit, I am NOT a fan of Elixir strings, which I think these come with stock). It’s no small wonder Steve Vai plays a Carvin. The SH575 is simply a dream to play, and this is really the saving grace of this guitar.
How It Sounds
I’m really conflicted in this area. Acoustically, this guitar rules. I love the acoustic sound of this guitar, especially when plugged into a good acoustic amp (Dave uses a Genz-Benz 150). But even plugged into my DAW from the synth unit, the acoustic tones were nothing short of amazing. Here’s an example:
In the clip above, I ran the 1/4″ out on the guitar into my pedalboard, and had the MIDI out go into the synth so I could have a nice background string pad to play over. Very neat! 🙂 In other words, I have two separate signals going into my DAW. As you can tell, the natural acoustic tone of the SH575 is gorgeous – it doesn’t sound like an acoustic plugged into an amp. It sounds like a big-body acoustic with a microphone in front of it! I love it!
In this next clip, I’m running only the MIDI out from the guitar into the synth, then into my DAW. I recorded two separate tracks: One for the guitar, then I overdubbed a “bamboo flute” patch over the guitar.
To play these parts individually, the volume knob is a combination volume knob with one volume “ring” around a central raised knob. The center knob controls the synth volume, while the outer ring controls the guitar volume. With the first clip, I had a mix of both guitar and synth. With this clip, for each individual part, I turned down the synth or the guitar to isolate the signal. Again, very cool.
In this final clip, I feature the guitar alone. I wanted to see how it sounded driven. The end result isn’t a bad sound at all, but I really had to work hard to get some sustain out of the guitar, and instead of just using the natural drive of my amp, I opted to run the guitar through my Tube Screamer and a touch of compression to add some sustain and give the signal some balls. Also, I played this clip with the neck pickup of the guitar, as the bridge pickup pretty much did nothing for me. Mixing the two was nice, but if this were my guitar, I’d lower the bridge pickup to reduce the treble just a tad. In any case, here’s the clip:
Overall Impressions
As I mentioned above, there’s a lot to like about this guitar from the synth access to the acoustic tones. I was thinking that perhaps a function of the lack of sustain might have to do with the Elixir strings that are put on at the factory. I’d probably string this guitar up with either pure nickel or nickel wound to get more resonance out of the strings. That might be the way to go to get a better electric guitar sound out of it. And as I mentioned, the electric guitar sound is not bad at all, and if I were to rate it just on tone, it would get really high marks. But the lack of sustain just kills me; truth be told, my Strat seems to have more inherent sustain than this guitar. Sad but true.
Don’t get me wrong. I like this guitar – a lot! I’d definitely use it for rhythm guitar and for acoustic simulation; and of course, for playing a synth along with it, which it is particularly great for.
My very close friend and fellow gear slut, Peter Jagielski, has just officially launched an interesting site called 
In my ever-constant search for new gear, I accidentally stumbled upon 
Guitar Gear 