Whilst I was out getting a bass, over Christmas, I'd spotted a rather cool looking but very reasonably priced Les Paul style guitar.
Is was a Vintage and was the Signature guitar of Midge Ure.
A gold top Les Paul, with a Vibrola style trem.
So I headed out this morning to try it out.
The very first thing you notice about this guitar is is about the same weight as the sun.
OMG, it is the heaviest guitar I have ever picked up and that includes some very heavy Gibbos and PRS's.
I plugged it in to have a play but all I could think of was how the body was pulling it back, over my leg.
I've never experienced that before and thought even sitting down, you'd need a strap.
I did manage to continue though and quite liked the dual coil P90 style pickups, that you can blend between single coil and humbucking, with Trev Wilkinson's clever varicoil control.
The neck was quite nice and the Vibrola, although very limited in range, worked OK.
I'd had Vibrola on an Epiphone SG a while back, that was worse than useless.
Anyway, I knew this guitar was just too heavy for me, that was some mahogany the body was made of.
So I then tried out around another 8 or 9 guitars, all under £700 and pretty decent.
The one that really impressed though, retailed at £349 and I got it for £280 with a decent gigbag thrown in.
It was a Vintage VS6, in Vintage White with Gold Hardware.
Which is basically slightly offset SG, in creamy ivory, with gold hardware and black scratchplate.
Even before I plugged it in, I noticed how resonant it was, being beautifully set up, with a vibrant spring in it's step.
When plugged in, the Wilkinson humbuckers (MWVC Double Coils) had a real warmth and character on clean and mild crunch settings.
And when I put it on high gain and switched to the bridge pick up, my face lit up, as I went into full monster mode.
It was just f'~*ing great.
This was the cheapest guitar I'd played today and now, the cheapest I have owned for many a year.
I'd been hearing some very good things about Vintage guitars, over the last few years.
But I was dubious, as I remembered them from 15 odd years ago, when they were pretty poor.
But having owned guitars from PRS, MusicMan, Suhr and Gibson, I was totally flabbergasted at how a 300 quid guitar could have build quality, finishing, hardware and design, this good.
The neck is superb and a joy to play.
If I was being picky, I'd say the matt gold, Vintage logo and decoration on the headstock looks a little cheap.
Although to be fair it looks OK, under the gloss finish.
Also the output jack looks a little out of position, in relation to the knobs and selector switch.
All very minor stuff in comparison to the overall, great quality of this guitar and all for not much cash.
And finally there is no neck dive here.
Bloody brilliant.
SPEC:
Colour: Vintage White
Body: Mahogany
Scratchplate: 4-ply Black
Neck: Mahogany – Set Neck
Fingerboard Radius: 12"
Frets: 22
Top Nut: Graphtech Nubone XB
Nut Width: 42.5mm
Machine Heads: Wilkinson Deluxe WJ44
Hardware Colour: Gold
Pickups: 2 Wilkinson MWVC Double Coils
Controls: 2 Volume/ 2 Tone/ 3-Way Toggle Switch
Comments
I saw a picture of that Midge Ure model a while back, doesn't it have an oversized body? That might account for the weight
I'm sure that mahogany body had a lead core.:p
Being nearly 15, it will need some new frets. Slightly scared of paying out on such a cheap guitar though!