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guitar one, guitar two, guitar three, guitar four, guitar five, guitar six, guitar seven, guitar eight, guitar nine, guitar ten, guitar eleven, guitar twelve, guitar thirteen, guitar fourteen, guitar fifteen, guitar sixteen, guitar seventeen, guitar eighteen, guitar nineteen, guitar twenty, guitar twentyone, guitar twentytwo, guitar twentythree, guitar twentyfour, guitar twentysix, guitar twentyseven, guitar twentyeight, guitar twentynine, guitar thirty, guitar thirtyone, guitar thirtytwo, guitar thirtythree, guitar thirtyfour, guitar thirtyfive, guitar thirtysix, guitar thirtyseven, guitar thirtyeight, guitar thirtynine, guitar fourty. The Fender Distortion pedal drives tube or solid-state amps into thick distortion and singing sustain, evoking the edgy hard-rock tones of the ’70s and ’80s. Great with many different amplifiers, it’s responsive enough that a guitar’s volume control can be adjusted to the exact amount of distortion desired, from aggressive crunch to full-on saturation. It can be used to create a distorted tone or as a boost for higher-gain rhythm and solo tones. he Fender Drive pedal creates a warm overdrive reminiscent of classic ’60s and ’70s rock and blues tones. It can be used to push tube or solid-state amps, creating harmonically rich crunch and sustain. With an old-school design that matches its vintage warmth, it makes an ideal choice for the musician looking for rich, harmonic overdriven tone. The Fender Chorus pedal will remind guitarists just how cool and indispensable the lushly spatial effect can be. Add sparkle to clean open chords, to animate strummed passages and to thicken distorted power chords. Get just the right amount of chorus desired, cleanly and quietly. Operates in mono or with stereo outputs for vibrantly huge sound while creating wide, sweeping modulation effects or shimmering 12-string sounds. The Fender Delay pedal creates richly resonating echo effects from short slap-back rockabilly sounds to longer repeating echo perfect for huge, soaring guitar solos (it’s great for other electronic instruments too, such as keyboards). Dedicated delay time, feedback and level controls give you complete command of your sound’s spatial characteristics. Operates in mono or with stereo outputs for two-amplifier setups. The Fender Custom Shop’s 2013 Custom Collection presents some of its most sophisticated and meticulously crafted product offerings to date, including eight guitars and two basses. The ’59/Custom Hybrid humbucker isn’t your typical Seymour Duncan offering. At its root, it’s the offspring of two very popular Duncan humbuckers. The concept began with a fan talking on the company’s online forum about how he’d experimented with combining coils from Duncan ’59 and Custom pickups. The resulting blend of woody PAF tone and modern humbucking power not only impressed the forum member, but also maestro Duncan himself—so much so that the modified pickup was introduced as a standard production model. The SH-16 is a true hybrid of the ’59 and the Custom it mates a ’59’s screws-side coil with a Custom’s slug-side coil, and powers them with an alnico 5 magnet. It’s designed specifically for the bridge position (Duncan recommends pairing it with a full-size ’59 or Alnico II Pro in the neck position), and has a DC resistance of 11.5k. The pickup also uses four-conductor wire for coil tapping and out-of-phase switching, if that’s your fancy.
Interestingly, individual coils are wound using different gauges of pickup wire, which is responsible for much of the pickup’s unique character. The ’59 coil uses thicker, 42-gauge wire, which is commonly used for PAF-style pickups for its clarity and openness at lower resistance (7k–9k). The Custom coil uses thinner, 43-gauge wire, which yields a crisper, more immediate attack, tighter lows, and additional compression when wound for higher output (14.1k in a standard Custom). The coil mismatch can feel and sound strange at first—especially if you’re used to contemporary humbucking tones. It’s a great setup if you need single-coil tones, however. Coil-tapping knocks the ’59 coil out, leaving only the hotter Custom coil, which rates at a healthy 7.1k for spanky, Strat-like tones.
Compared to the stock ’57 Classic bridge pickup in our Gibson Les Paul Traditional test instrument, the SH-16 exhibited an uncommon range of output and harmonic content. Through a Fender Twin Reverb, the Duncan sang with a familiar midrange growl not unlike the stock Gibson pickup, but with a more authoritative stance and attitude. The alnico 5 magnet in the Duncan likely has a hand in making the Duncan bark louder than the Les Paul’s stock pickup, which is built around a softer-sounding alnico 2 magnet. Top end from the Duncan also had a sparkling quality that made it sound more alive—an attribute you can hear loud and clear even when softly fingerpicking progressions on the lower strings.
Since their 2001 debut, Paul Reed Smith’s Singlecut electric guitars have been one of the company’s biggest success stories. Sure, they’re clearly influenced by Smith’s love of the tones and looks of the late-’50s Gibson Les Paul Standard, but the Singlecut also has many of the hallmarks and refinements that have made PRS one of the top electric-guitar manufacturers in the world.
PRS currently produces several guitars in the Singlecut style, with the flagship model—the SC 58—carrying a fairly hefty price tag. At its 2011 PRS Experience event, the company unveiled a limited run of “Stripped 58” guitars—variations of the SC 58 that did away with some of the flashier elements to cut the price—and when the guitars sold out quickly, PRS decided to make the Stripped 58 a regular production model.
Despite the impetus for its name, the Stripped 58 is only “stripped” in comparison to some of the bling you find on higher-end PRSs—both visually and aurally, it’s still a breathtaking instrument when compared to a lot of guitars on the market. In fact, it can be hard to distinguish it from a pricier SC 58 at a brief glance. Both feature mahogany bodies with carved, two-piece maple tops. The Stripped 58 isn’t built from the “artist grade” wood used for the SC 58 (though it can be ordered with the sort of premium figured-maple cap that PRS calls a “10-Top” for an additional cost), but the depth of the grain is still impressive. Further, the entire guitar is finished with PRS' high-end V12 finish—a thin, hard composite with some of the resonance of nitrocellulose and the resilience of acrylic.