Brian Moore guitars: i91

The final addition to my guitar posse is a Brian Moore guitar, the i91 to be precise. Now who the heck is Brian Moore? He's just another one of those custom guitar builders in the likes of Suhr, Paul Reed Smith, Sid Poole, Gene Baker, Tom Anderson et al. The i91 here is from the Korean line of i1000 series.Davis GMC is currently clearing this series of guitars at a too-good-to-be-true prices so I duly made my move. Some specs:

• Mahogany body
• Figured bookmatched maple wood top
• 22 fret Maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, pearl fretboard markers
• 25.5" scale 15" radius
• Alnico Humbuckers and single coil
• Chrome Hardware

The headstock has a touch of class to it but it's acquired taste to many of us. Also, try asking around which replacement brand name offers a 2-4 tuner combination.

The i91's body is sleek to say the least, but there is a need to get attuned to the pickup selector lever located in between the volume & tone knobs. However, the nearest knob is located away from the bridge pickup so it doesn't get in the way of aggressive picking. In fact, the pickup selector is more proximate to the picking hand's reach which is good consideration because the tendency to switch pickups is greater than volume/ tone alterations during play & the knobs do not get in the way when this happens.

The i91 sports a curved body top, more curvaceous than what the Ibanez's S-series is offering in the mean time. If you take a closer look, even the center portion of the body isn't dead flat, note the edges of the whammy bridge being projected away from the body.

It gets more interesting on the flip-side as we see here, that's where the output jack is located. The strap button sits lower so this way, your cable won't get trampled on during a stand-up performance; there isn't a need to bring the cable up to slip it between the button & the strap as we commonly see during live shows.