The Project Guitar
Some luck, and a chance spot bonus come together to fuel an upgrade that I otherwise wouldn't make.
If you’ve been following the saga, I recently had my interest piqued about a budget guitar brand. It is the “house” brand for a major German music store, Thomann Music, and made in Indonesia, and the prices are shockingly low. As in a pretty decent entry level Telecaster or Stratocaster style for about eighty bucks, up to very well appointed guitars with neck through construction, stainless steel frets, EMG active pickups and Floyd Rose tremolo’s for about five hundo’s. That is a ridiculously good deal any way you slice it.
The Fusion-T I bought wasn’t perfect, but with a little fret polish and a fresh set of strings and it plays SUPER good.
Hell, I even grew to like the pickups. Sure, the tone and volume pots are not very good, but I mostly play at full volume with the tone cranked all the way up so it isn’t that big of a deal, and playing fingerstyle and heavy distortion it is a pretty groovy sound. But it is probably the weakest point on the guitar.
Today, I had about an hour to kill, so I fired up my amp and played back to back, same settings on the amp, both the HB and the Charvel, and one thing immediately stood out. The Charvel – with its high output Seymour Duncan pickups – is noticeably louder, all things considered, than the Fusion-T.
So, what to do? Live with it (and frankly, it is fine. If I wasn’t comparing it to a shredder axe I wouldn’t even notice)? Try to put better budget pickups in it? Spend a couple hundos on a good set of Seymour Duncans?
Ugh, that takes a good budget guitar, and boosts it into the pricy entry level playground.
But, out of the blue, I got a $250 spot bonus at work that I can use to play with. Free money!
So, perhaps I will get some better p’ups for this thing.
If you’ve stayed around this long, here is some musical candy. Allan Holdsworth, a jazz player with incredible touch, a YUUUUUUUGE stretch, and absolutely tasteful riffing.