Tekton-ic

Folks, the current buzzword in the mean time: Tekton. These are PRS' new range of guitars aimed at the faster playing cohort. There are several models on offer; fixed bridge, whammy, FR whammy & 7-string extended scale. Looks like it's not a mere testing of the waters but a full blown consideration. I'm interested in the fixed bridge version but they don't offer solid colours for these. The most appealing version to me is this one pictured here.  

Solid colours are available for the FR version, this green one is a member of the family. These days, I'm no longer into the whammy stuff. I don't bend my strings so whammy-ing is out of the question. I've turned into someone who legato his way through with lots of chromatics 😅

Lest we missed it, the Tekton has an offset body design.

Thinking out loud:

• The fundamentals of the Tekton design were already manifested by the Vela & Chleo. Nobody would find this debut shocking
• The Tekton is a bolt-on make, which would appeal readily to the more aggressive / fast players. Jackson, ESP & Ibanez, the perennial shred favourites, had their models established in the bolt-on category so PRS doing a bolt-on to win over these players is the right move
• The FR version features an FR 1000 bridge, not an FRO. Implications: 1) Even PRS understood the 1000 version is good & reliable enough so no hesitations incorporating this into their guitars 2) Keeps costs down - also the reason no bird inlays are offered for the entire Tekton range
• Top carve isn't as deep as the core models, in fact, it's designed to incorporate some elbow relief so it's a smart consideration
• Thinner neck profile - manage expectations, please, it's not gonna be Ibanez thin. It's still within the PRS interpretations but that doesn't mean it won't be appealing

Pics: PRS

Antares

Kiesel has a new model in its lineup; the Antares. As you can see here, it's an offset design (think: Fender Jaguar / PRS Vela) quite clearly aiming at the shredders among us. I'm still trying to get used to that headstock design but everything else looks awesome. Loving the one-knob option.

Pic: Kiesel

ESP 2026: Maverick

I've always loved ESP's MV (Maverick) models for its offset design; yes, it's a subtle offset unlike Fender's Jaguar et al. This year, the ESP version features a control knob. If you wish for that traditional single knob affair, then the LTD version preserves this originality. The other differences we note in the LTD version:

• headstock binding
• SD Hot Rails neck pickup (EPS has the Cool Rails version)
• FR 1000 bridge (FRO for the ESP)
• 24.75" scale length (25.5" for ESP)

Pics: ESP 

Cyclone

Spent Sunday morning with something different, but not entirely. Jaguars & Jazzmasters are predominantly Fender's offset darlings, other models get sidelined for being second fiddle or too estranged (eg. Meteora). The model you see here is the Cyclone. The Cyclone was discontinued in 2006 / 2007 & reappeared in the Japanese end of Fender quite recently. I lost track when that happened... The Cyclone sports a 24.75" scale length so it sits in between the Jaguar & the Jazzmaster.

I dislike the M / Wave-type default string retainer; it sits too low on the headstock. Will always make it a point to replace them with this rounded version. Fender experts told me this is necessary to keep the strings in place at the nut when you whammy. Since I don't whammy, it made perfect sense.

Beez installed these SDs yesterday: Scooped (N) / JB (bridge). Anyway, these are excess pickups that I didn't know I own, really. I'm not into white pickups, was wondering why I have this trembucker version lying around. I recall buying the middle Scooped single coil, not the neck model. Still wondering why I have it to begin with.

I have a fresh set of 9 - 42 in this guitar as an experiment. I'm tuned to fourths, getting a feel for the high E / B strings before making further changes. First impressions - it's necessary to have thin strings for this tuning approach for the aforementioned E / B but the rest of the strings feel floppy. Looking forward to try the 9.5 - 44 instead.

Victory

Gibson is celebrating the return of its Victory model, an offset doublecut design which somehow looks very PRS-esque. This design might appeal to those players who always venture up the upper frets. Putting it plainly, it might have applications for shredders. 

Here's how the original '80s Victory looked like; the headstock was really an acquired taste (darn, looked like the Fender Startcaster headstock on a diet). Back then, it's an all maple affair for the body & neck. The current Victory looks more refined design-wise so it's not really a real return in that sense. Oh, it was meant to appeal to country players.

Will the shredder horde embrace this guitar & abandon their Ibanez / ESP / Jackson in the mean time? Doubt so. For the Gibson fanatics, I still believe they adore the SG for that doublecut feel albeit the neck dive. Gibson has limited appeal in this aspect & they've never really tried to penetrate this segment of the market. Maybe a passing interest (eg. M-III) at best, nothing concrete / lasting.

Pics: Gibson / Namuwiki

Thumbs up: Cort G300 Pro

Spent a week with this Cort G300 Pro. Not my guitar, belongs to the guitarist of local band, Urban Sensation. This was sent to me for re-string & set up. This has to be one of the best value-for-money guitar in the mean time. That roasted maple neck & Seymour Duncan (JB / Jazz) combo are easily the highlight of this guitar. Not forgetting stainless steel frets & tusq nut, all for a sub-$800 price tag. The action of this guitar had to be re-set for a set of 10s. My only beef with this one is that the bridge curvature was not conforming to the fretboard radius. In fact, action for some strings were uneven. 

The G300 Pro is actually an offset design that invites a robust application for virtually any music genre. 

The neck profile, according to the manufacturer, is a palm-friendly V but after a week of handling, to me, it's very C-esque. Whatever the case, it's one of the most comfortable necks out there for sure.

Pics: Cort

Review quickie: Fender Super Sonic

Background 

• The Super Sonic started off as a Squier. It was part of the Vista Series (1997, made in Japan) together with the Venus, Jagmaster & Musicmaster models. 
• The Super Sonic then became a member of the Pawn Shop series (Mexico) with both humbuckers slanted.
• The Super Sonic was re-introduced as a Squier model in 2020 as part of the Paranormal Series.
• The current limited edition Super Sonic (Japan) is a replication of the original Squier version with only the bridge pickup slanted. It features a basswood body, Dragster humbuckers, 2 volume controls & 24" scale length. The 75th Anniversary decal is printed on the headstock rear but the Super Sonic is not a commemorative model in conjunction with this anniversary.

Construction / fit / finish

• First class treatment from the Japanese factory, high standards all round
• Whammy felt a little stiff in use

Playability / tone

• C-profile neck has a chunky feel.
• Cutaways were designed for maximum upper fret access, will appease the shred camp
• Dragster pickups sound flat; neither excellent clean nor menacing under intense distortion. Lacks a tone control to provide tone variation but putting both humbuckers on simultaneously with differentiated volume levels for each pickups provide some consolation.

Conclusion

This is an identity crisis offset Fender guitar which is still a beloved model today. That quirky look is a visual escape from the usual Fender offerings & stamps a firm deviation identity on the user. Playability-wise, despite its mutant outline, is excellent. The chunky rounded neck profile would put both Fender & Gibson fans at home in terms of feel. It has a residual appeal to the shredders among us as upper fret access is superior to the average Strat / Tele. The potential deal-breaker here are the Dragster pickups which sounded flat from the get-go, compounded by the fact that no tone control exists to sculpt the sonic offerings. Remember, this is a 24" instrument & will never snap like a Strat / Tele. Personally, I find the price repulsive.

Final rating: 85%

Fender Super Sonic ($1,699)

• Availability: Swee Lee
• Bag included

Pic: Gearnews

Offsets @ DGMC

This awesome goodness of an offset otherwise known as the Bacchus BJM-1, is now available at Davis GMC for ... $345!

Equally enticing, in a dual humbucking pickup combo is the BJM-3 listing for $345 as well. This is a good time if you are in the market for an affordable offset guitar on a budget. If you have come across a Bacchus before, you'd know the value-for-money these instruments offer, without compromising quality.
 

Pics: Bacchus International

Modern re-string

Had been spending time with my offsets lately, this one got the most play time.

This isn't an upgrade but just testing to see the benefits of a less resistant set of string saddles. Yes, these helped. Yes, these promote a comfortable hand placement on the bridge. Yes, the strings stayed in place due to the notch / slit. FYI, the Chinese Modern Player JM was equipped with a tune-o-matic type bridge, not the traditional Fender offset version. This is the wrong bridge type if you often whammy, if you don't then it's good. Nothing expensive, this roller version is a Chinese product that works. 

I also like the Seymour Duncan Phat Cats in this guitar. I thought these would be closer to the P-90s in its strict translation but they sound humbucker-esque instead, very suitable for heavy, distorted stuff.

GHS 9s for this one. Old packaging means it's a leftover pack with the freshness still in tact. I believe this was from a June 2020 purchase. 

Duncanized offset

Today is an I wanna play a thick neck day but not a Gibson. The only non-Gibson guitar with a thick neck that I own is this Offset Telecaster. It will rival any 50s neck Gibson around while keeping that Fender C-profile in tact. The only difference here is a rounder C carve bordering on a U. I dislike carrying this guitar around because it's heavy. Due to its offset body outline, it won't fit into other, better padded bags to offset (no pun intended) the weight. The feeble strap of the default Fender bag dug into my shoulder with every walking pace.

New pickups: Seymour Duncan Vintage P90 (n) & Five-Two (b); a deserving & much needed change for the tone I embrace. I reserved a separate appraisal for these two so just a brief mention here.

La Bella 9s for today. If you are interested, do visit TYMC.

Re-string Saturday: Martin SC-13E

Gloomy weather + sick + no money = Stay home. An indoor weekend made a little exciting by the presence of this Martin SC-13E. Not mine though, belongs to an ex-colleague who bought it at the City Music sale yesterday.

It's a showroom piece & the strings were dead. The guitar sounds awful when I tested it for its electronics. I happened to have this SIT set & managed to inject life back into this rather awesome guitar. Folks, if you wish for some crispy tones from your acoustic guitar, do give this Golden Bronze set a try. 

Next to receive some attention were the frets. These look well played (L) & after a quick polish (R), they look shiny & attractive once more.

Last but not least - wood care. The air-conditioned showroom might have dried the wooden parts of this guitar, especially the unfinished & open pore areas. An example would be the bridge; note the dryness (top) & its re-conditioned look (bottom). Folks, dry wood will flake off or even crack if unattended to. The dry fretboard was taken care of as well but it's not as dry as the bridge.

Here are the exciting bits:

• A: The neck sports a shallow C profile, in fact, it feels like some modern Fender electric guitar more than an acoustic where things tend to be beefy in this department. The special feature here is the flattened upper fret / heel area so it appeals to those shredders very easily. In fact, Martin refers to it as a heel-less joint. Very convincing.
• B: Sculptured cutaway bit to encourage more upper fret access especially when the guitar features a cutaway. This guitar is almost heel-less due to the fact that it's a bolt-on construction as seen here.
• C: The guitar also includes a neck tilt adjustment access. A bolt-on construction allows this to happen just like the solid body counterparts.

If you missed it, the SC-13E is an offset design. The understanding of 'offset' here refers to the waist curvatures which are not located at the exact opposite of each other as highlighted above; they are a little misplaced. Of course, the well known offset design we can always understand are the Fender instruments; Jaguar, Jazzmaster, et al.

Mega ordinary

Trying this out in my Duo Sonic. Many of us would get excited over how slinky these feel upon immediate handling. I find these very ordinary. To me, fresh strings, regardless of the brand name, always feel good to the touch. Here's a summary of what I have in various instruments with reference to the respective scale lengths:

• 26.5" = 11 - 49 (11 - 59 for 7-string)
• 25.5" = 9 - 42 (9 - 54 for 7-string)
• 25"/ 25.1" = 9.5 - 44
• 24.75" = 10 - 46
• 24" = 10.5 - 48

Tele sonic

This happened last weekend. I actually prefer a dual single coil feature in a guitar which is not a Strat. In the Fender range, there are a few selections, the Telecaster being the most celebrated amongst them. The rest are in Fender's offset range. 

The Tele offers that unmistakable twang that's a winner for country music applications more than anything else. And then there are prolific Tele champions that removed the instrument from that country  exclusive domain - Albert Collins & Danny Gatton, two of the best Tele purveyors who had sadly left us. Personally, I don't pay too much attention to the Tele twang, I set mine up for high gain stuff but keeping the pickups strictly single coil. My American Standard Telecaster is the only one with a humbucker in the bridge (Seymour Duncan Hot Rails) & I do not intend for it to leave its residence as I hear a wonderful, scratchy bridge tone, the kind of abrasive distortion that's very suitable for black & doom metal. 

Moving on to the offsets, I used to dislike them for their shorter scale length until I heard a friend's Jazz master in action. Two things: 1) Those Jazzmaster single coils are really something 2) The Jazzmaster is a 25.5" guitar so it didn't put me off like its other offset counterparts. It triggered me to listen to Dinosaur Jr & I must say that the Jazzmaster pickups are some of the best when it comes to high octane fuzz applications. Then Sonic Youth & My Bloody Valentine got onto my listening pleasure as well & I moved on positively from there. Along the way, I became more agreeable with the other offsets after swallowing some pride & invested in a Mustang. It's all about familiarity & tweaking some details that suits my quirks. 

H-offset

I'm still in ESP mode, I think I missed them too much. This here is the Horizon III. It's another ESP & another black finish but I bought this one due to that offset body design. Not too many manufacturers take pride in an offset body outline, Fender had always stolen the limelight here & deservingly, they are the very few to have dedicated models which are still in production today. The thing about the offset design is that it removes a little bit of the elbow area making things a little less in the way & I appreciate such considerations. On that note, I'm glad PRS kept the Vela in production. That's another offset make slated for a cult following.

Also, the H-III features this 'tongue' design & I always look at it as the improved EBMM headstock but i"m sure the ESP camp did not have this in mind when they got this going. It's only Monday but I'm glad the week had already kicked off. I really need June to zip by a little faster.

Doheny

No idea if it's offset season but time & again, G&L simply delivers the goods. This is definitely good stuff. We can live with an offset design with simpler, less cluttered controls. We can also live with heritage & G&L has lots of that; the offset body design to me, is simply an attractive alternative. On top of all this charming goodness, we have charming tones:

PJ Mustang

One of the new Fenders at Swee Lee right now is the Mustang bass. Previously, it was offered as a Japanese make & only feature the P-type pickups which were smaller than the P models seen here. The current Mexican version (part of the new offset series released late 2016, listing for $839) has both the P & J pickups on board & medium jumbo frets as opposed to the vintage frets of the Japanese. Since I own the Japanese version, I would urge guitar dweebs who would grab a bass every now & then to check this one out. Its shorter scale length is the winner here with so many extended scale guitars out there rivalling the scale of shorter scaled basses. It's about familiarity & the willingness to embrace a bass which delivers all the low end  goodness, just a little compressed to address the needs of smaller built players. 

Sonic assault

I'm very determined to not make an Ibanez be the first purchase of 2017 & so this happened. The 'new' Fender offset models were introduced in the final quarter of 2016 which didn't make it here till now. I had bad episodes with the Mexican models; bad nut slots, warped necks, dysfunctional truss rods... the list goes on. These days, the Mexican models had been souped up to fill in price voids (more than anything else) so they need to keep up in terms of QC. I managed to play an impressive Mexican model (thanks to the good people @ Swee Lee Katong 👍) last June but held back as more of the good stuff were streaming in. 

So I guess the wait paid off. No complaints with the QC here as the Duo-Sonic was played right out of the box. My only gripe was the very low action it came with, everything else was splendid. Playing through a Marshall amp at the store, these default single coils were adept at both clean & driven settings with no clarity compromise but the twang factor could have been better. I will continue to check the newer generation of Mexican models out. They are now worthy considerations (in my books), more so when the American models are climbing up the price points.

PS: Thanks to Mr. Faizal & company @ Swee Lee I12 for their awesome service as usual.

Squier 2017: Offsetting

We're still in offset fever as Squier revealed its 2017 listing. This is the most affordable Jazzmaster
 by the manufacturer, an Affinity model. 👍

A little above the tier, we have this Mustang in HH format. Apparently targetted at distortion fiends hence the humbucker format.

Jazzmaster Deluxe- nothing new as Squier has the Vintage Mod versions currently running which is quite well-received. 

Squier is doing the right thing by supplementing its Fender releases. Late 2016 we saw the Mexican offsets being released followed by the American Pro models which will be officially unveiled at Winter NAMM 2017. Now we have a range of offsets by Squier in case your pockets are not deep enough to join in the fray. Both Fender & Squier are enticing the buyers away from the usual Strat & Tele offerings not that they ran out of ideas but they are cleverly telling the new generation of guitar dweebs out there, hey, we have some other models going as well. For frustrated players like me, we had always wanted a reputable range of offsets in the market which didn't happen in the '90s, let alone the turn of the century. Offsets could be had from the Japanese market which wasn't well supplemented in terms of online presence as well as dealers here due to distributorship issues. Things are looking good in this camp 👌

Offset prices

Prices for the Fender 2016 Mex Offset models are out:

• Duo-Sonic/ Mustang: USD500
• Mustang PJ bass: USD550

These were not meant to be pricey, I personally feel they are listed fairly in view of the tier they are in & the country of manufacture. Keeping fingers crossed for their availability here 😬

Mustang's low & behold

This is the final member of Fender's offset range, new for 2016- the Mustang PJ bass. (Mex) Named to announce the pickup combination of this bass, the shorter scale Mustang bass might appeal to guitar dweebs more than the bass wielders. Since I own the Japanese version, there is a tendency for me to move quickly up & down the neck as opposed to observing a rhythm focus. That said, the Mustang bass is every bit a bass & not something that pretends to be one without the proper sonic properties.