MI Pro

There comes a time in every guitarist’s playing career when the moment they have been waiting for finally comes. Some have to wait years, a lucky few not so long, but when it arrives, hell, it’s enough to make the hardest rocker alive misty eyed. That moment is when, after years toiling away on everything from cheesecutter Chinese knock-offs all the way up to mid-range workhorses, the guitarist buys his first genuinely great quality guitar.

Breaking the £700 barrier is a big moment, one that should be celebrated as much as any birthday. It says a few things; primarily, that the player is finally making enough money to actually acquire a guitar that has been coveted for some time, itself no mean feat, but there’s much more. It means that a dream – maybe a small dream to the casual observer, but a dream nonetheless – has been achieved, and the gleaming guitar that has been drooled over and saved up for can be finally taken home. It means a certain amount of appreciation and love for the instrument itself has been gained. You
join a club on the day you buy your first truly beautiful guitar and it’s really quite a feeling.

With the market as busy and full of new models and updates on old favourites as it ever has been, there’s plenty to choose from out there. For the retailer, there has never been so much choice, and with the economy in such a fragile state making the correct stock choices has never been more crucial. Thankfully, MI Pro is on hand to help sort the six-string wheat from the chaff…

Fender
As one of the most high profile recent entries into the £700-plus section of the market, Fender’s Road Worn series is certainly causing many an eyebrow to raise. Taking the trend for pre-aged instruments to its next logical conclusion, Fender has bridged the gap between extreme high-end USA custom shop relics and entry-level approximations with these great looking and feeling guitars.

The high quality of instruments coming out of Fender’s Mexican factories nowadays, combined with the company’s obvious expertise in the area of roughing up new guitars to give them an aged look, means that these instruments pack a serious bang for your average Joe’s hard earned buck.

There is obvious appeal here for guitar slingers looking for the vintage vibe on slightly less of a budget than custom shop specials might allow and be in no doubt that these are excellent guitars. The ageing feels realistic, the necks have been beautifully sanded to make them feel like they’ve been played a thousand times, and there’s a good spread of 50s and 60s style Strats and Teles. This is a range that looks set to do some serious business for Fender in the UK, so don’t miss out on giving customers a chance to get their hands on at least one.

Gibson
With the reaction to Gibson’s unique Robot guitars so far a positive one, and anticipation high for the arrival of orders of the Dark Fire Les Paul on these shores, the boundaries of what the electric guitar can be capable of are being well and truly pushed. The astonishment on the face of players who have never seen a self-tuning guitar before really speaks for itself and that these innovations are not priced out of reach from the man on the street means that we are going to be seeing the technology spread a lot quicker than it might have done had it been three times as expensive – surely a good thing.

Combining the best of the modern with that which Gibson has always done well means that the Robot guitars, available in Les Paul or SG shapes in a variety of ultra modern or more traditional colours, look set to buck the trend for ‘out there’ electric guitar designs. With the self-tuning system affordable to install, unobtrusive in design and, crucially, very good at its job, you really can expect to be seeing these guitars around for some time yet and in the hands of an increasingly diverse range of players.

It’s not just Gibson which is making the most of this area of the market though. Long-term sister brand Epiphone also has plenty to shout about. Although more usually found in the sub-£700 area of the market, Epiphone’s latest offering is a corker of a guitar that marks a rare outing for the brand into the higher end of the market. The 1962 Wilshire Custom is without doubt a beauty. Manufactured in the US and aiming to capture the essence of one of Epiphone’s most easily recognisable solid bodies, it features a mahogany body, three-a-side Epiphone headstock with vintage tuners, a set of P90s and a set of goodies including a hard case, leather strap, certificate of authenticity and a vintage looking curly lead. With the likes of Pete Doherty playing similar Epiphones recently, as well as the obvious heritage of the model, this is a guitar that will be sought after by a keen fanbase of Epi lovers.

Westside
Home to a number of brands that deserve a look-in at this price point, first up from Westside is Duesenberg, which has been steadily building a name for itself for some time now among guitarists looking for distinctive, retro-styled instruments that ooze class. There are plenty of guitars to choose from in the Duesy range that might catch the eye of an upgrading guitarist, from the likes of the hollow body Imperial through to the solid body 49er, a beautiful instrument that with its ‘50s style chrome and modern hardware combines the best of two worlds.

Another big name in this area of the market for Westside is Tom Anderson’s Guitarworks, the American manufacturer that has shown the rest of the world how to really hot rod a guitar. Restlessly innovative and with a growing army of fans worldwide, you only need to look at something like the Drop Top Classic to get an idea of what this company is capable of achieving. A super strat manufacturer by hand and with the highest possible quality of components, a lot of Tom Anderson players are almost religious about these guitars, making them well worth a look.

The recent addition of Schecter to the Westside stable means there is a third brand for the company in this area of the market. Popular with name players for many years now, these hand-crafted US built guitars have often been favoured by heavy rockers – the 2009 Blackjack ATX C-1 is a great example of what the company does best. With rockist looks, mahogany body and loaded with a set of active Seymour Duncan active Black Out pickups, this is nothing short of a mighty guitar.
Martyn Booth

Established by ex-Gibson and Yamaha man Martyn Booth in the Suffolk countryside with the intention of bringing the luthier’s no-compromise, high quality and hand-made approach to guitar building to the UK market, the company has gone from strength to strength. One need only take a glance at the Martyn Booth Classic to see what it is all about: classic lines, hand-built in the UK to exacting specifications, with a huge variety of options available for customers looking for something that little bit special, these are the instruments that are flying the flag for UK manufacturing at the moment.

Having expanded greatly since the company was established in 2002, it has started to expand its dealer network and is currently looking for more retailers to take on what are without doubt beautifully constructed, great looking instruments.

Yamaha
While better known for its affordable electric guitars, Yamaha’s high-end models, exclusively made in the company’s Japanese workshops, are well regarded among players and dealers alike thanks to unique designs, quality components and high level construction methods.

Leading the pack is the company’s longest-running electric guitar, the SG2000. Originally designed in the late 1970s by Carlos Santana, the SG2000’s through-neck and brass sustain block were designed to maximise sustain, while the versatility afforded by custom coil-tapped humbuckers went a long way towards the designer’s goal to build the ultimate electric guitar.

Joined by the set-neck SG1000 and the flagship SG3000 models (only available in Japan until very recently and featuring custom finishes and upgraded cosmetics), the latest SGs combine the heritage of the range with up to date guitar-building technology – new SGs feature Yamaha’s Initial Response Acceleration, designed to eliminate the physical stresses between components of a guitar and produce a response much closer to that of a guitar played on for years.

Along with the popular SG range, a handful of signature models pepper the upper reaches of Yamaha’s catalogue, including the unique CV820WB, designed by Wes Borland of the recently reformed Limp Bizkit, and featuring ‘Takumi-Kazuri’ semi-hollow construction and exclusive custom hardware and pickups. It makes for a distinctive looking guitar for a player never shy about standing out from the crowd, and especially pertinent now the leading exponents of nu metal are back with a vengeance.

JHS
The Trev Wilkinson-designed Fret King series has been performing very well for JHS at the higher end of the market, as might be expected from a distributor that has had a track record of delivering excellent guitars in recent years.

All of Wilkinson’s UK-produced Green Label series instruments, assembled and finished by Wilkinson himself in his Southport workshops, fall into the £700-plus price category, and are proving to be very popular among players looking for instruments that lie slightly outside of the norm, yet look and perform just as well as the best the US has to offer.

The S-type inspired Corona guitars, the T-type Country Squires (including the great looking Yardbird), the twin-cutaway Elan models, the Firebird-esque lines of the Esprit models, and the intriguing ‘Back Into The Future’ vibe and looks of the excellent Ventura 60 and 80 versions are all popular choices in the Fret King range, which has gone from strength to strength since its launch last year.

Sound Technology
First up from Sound Technology and now shipping in the UK for the first time are the much sought-after Washburn Idol Chicago Custom Shop models. These include the WI568, featuring a premium-grade maple top, USA Seymour Duncan Pickups and Tone Pros hardware, and the WI566, which features all of the above but is powered by EMG 85 and 81 active humbuckers. The Idol range has also recently been bolstered by models in the Washburn Heavy Metal Series. The WI50V Pro E includes star inlays, a licensed Floyd Rose tremolo, EMG active humbuckers and a six-a-side reverse headstock.

Also from Sound Technology is the Larrivée RS4, a new addition which, with a combination of excellent craftsmanship and quality components, really does make its presence felt on the shop floor. The RS4 has an extra thick Canadian flamed maple top, Schaller M6 Tuners and straplocks, Tonepros bridge and stoptail, Switchcraft toggle and end pin jack and Luxe bumblebee capacitors.  

Lots on offer
As the electric guitar market continues to expand and fill up with more guitars by the day, it is refreshing to see that key companies are still pulling out the stops to provide guitarists with something genuinely new – be that a shape, a technology or a sound.

Economically times are tough in the UK and indeed across the world at the moment, but there is still a market for these instruments, and not simply among pros or older players with a bit more spare cash in their pockets. These are aspirational instruments that every 12 year-old battering away at his Squier Strat dreams of owning and one day will. It’s vital that they are in the market, giving guitarists a reason to move up the ladder into the realms of the high end. It’s as important now as it ever has been that high quality instruments make their mark on the High Street and show the guitar slinging public just how far their money can go.