My Favorite electric guitar Custom built by Allen Lewitt |
| This guitar, apart from being beautiful to look at and a pleasure to play, has something else going for it that you don't find very often. It's got to do with the way it vibrates in your hand. You can feel the strings vibrating through the neck into the palm of your hand, and the tone of the wood itself, without you plugging it in, is excellent. How can I describe it? Warm but articulate. Here are the specifications. Neck: One piece mahogany neck through body Fretboard: Compound radius 7.25 inch at the nut to 9.5 at 24 th fret. The fretboard wood is African Blackwood (Dalbergia Melonoxylon) Body: Mahogany with a figured walnut top and black binding Pickups: Kent Armstrong M214K Humbuckers with coil tap and 3 way switch Bridge: Fixed bridge with string through body feed. The reason I wanted this guitar built was firstly for the tone. A long time ago I had an Ibanez Artist solid body electric guitar that was made entirely out of mahogany. I took the stock pickups out and replaced them with Schaller Hot Stuff pickups. I played the guitar through a sansamp pedal (the original one with the micro-switches) set up in the effects loop of my ART SGX 2000 processor. It was the only time ever in my life when I've said "Oh my God" to a guitar sound. This guitar is soon to be re-equipped with a Schaller Hot Stuff in the bridge, and then I need to get myself a new SansAmp pedal. So you see now why I chose mahogany for the neck and body. The right mahogany is a phenomenal tone wood. |
| The Kent Armstrong pickups that I chose are the OEM Distortion humbuckers, model number M214K. Initially I thought they where a bit on the bright side, but now that I've gotten used to them, I'm having second thoughts about changing them. The harmonics come squealing out of this guitar, and where other guitars only distort an amplifier, this monster growls. |