a.hun wrote:The soundclips seem impressive. Remind me of the huge versatility I have with the two splittable 'buckers on my Gordon Smith Graduate Slimline 60. Nice. I'd still not go for it myself, largely because of the automatic tuning. But that looks like a great guitar!
Yeah I hear you on the tuners thing, I almost didn't bite because of that. It really depends on how you approach it. I simply look at it as my main gigging guitar where tuning changes between songs at an extremely fast pace is crucial. If you thnk of it as a polyphonic tuning system to get you 98% there then use the 40 to 1 ratio to fine tune it really speeds things up, if it ever fails then a nice set of locking grovers can simply be dropped in.
The pickup combination, hardshell case and dual coil splits with a 15 decibel boost switch are what really sold me. Setting the OR15 to a nice crunch sound (10 to 11 o'clock) puts me in a great position, coil splits take you down to a nice blues edge of breakup tone, and in non-split, the boost takes you into a great overdriven tone. Plus the pots are push-push which lets you just hit the different mode on the fly. Best of all worlds! Am I gushing? HAHA.
The sidewinder was the final deciding factor, I noticed none of the 2015 models carried it and didn't want to lose my chance at a great sounding pickup, it was either the Les Paul or Sg Futura if I wanted it. What is interesting about it is that it is not a typical p-100 stacked style pickup, as the name implies the coils are rotated sideways next to each other under the cover, really an interesting construction and the tone is amazing from it.
Really a great jack of all trades type of guitar. Essentially a different flavor built upon a Les Paul Studio foundation. I polished just the top of the body to really bring out the flame on it as it was a "vintage" gloss, now it is just simply amazing... Played through my new Orange Rig of course!
