Hey everyone! I played my newly acquired Series 1 guitar with my band last night for the first time. Since this is my first experience with a Series guitar, I thought I'd jot down a little review.
This thing is awesome. It's also almost a whole different instrument from electric guitar. The punch and dynamics of this instrument make it seem almost as if I were playing a piano/guitar. It cuts right through the band WITHOUT increasing volume! The clarity is really amazing, especially on the D,A,& E strings. The definition of the sound on the lower strings is like nothing else I've ever experienced. Single note runs, like the repeating signature phrase in Bird Song, are out there and super articulate.
The guitar really lends itself to playing parts of chords, 2 or 3 strings only ala Bob Weir. Even against the full band and playing only 2 or 3 strings, the sound of this guitar is easily discernible - all while playing at even lower volume than I usually do!
Surprisingly (at least to me) the guitar seemed to like all of my pedals, even the Teese RMC Wah that my Electrum never got along with. The tone of this guitar is soooooo present that I find myself at times being tentative in my playing! The axe places so much power in my fingertips that it's almost frightening. And the flexibility is astonishing. Between the two filters and the 3 way Q switches, I believe this guitar is capable of almost any tone you could imagine, at least on the clean side of the tracks. At one point last night, I was playing on the neck pickup, flicked the Q to 3rd position (max) and got a brilliant acoustic-like ring - so much so that the other guitarist looked up and asked me if the Series had a piezo in it!
It's going to take a little while to really learn how to play this instrument, but the journey will be well worth it.
Bill, tgo
(Message edited by lbpesq on February 17, 2006)