An electric guitar. This guitar has two cutaways and is often described as a cheap cross between a strat and a Gibson. I'm not sure this description is fair, or more to the point, useful, though it must be said it isn't expensive (yet). The body shape is aesthetically closer to one of the seventies Ovation solidbodies you occasionally see, and there is no scratchplate on the front, like you'd find on a Jackson. The headstock is an unremarkable 3 + 3 affair.

The Gibson comparison probably comes from its electronics. It's pickups are four lipsticks wired and placed like two humbuckers. The selector switch switches between either or both pickup just as on a Gibson, and the tone/volume knobs are positioned similarly, but can be pulled on for out-of-phase and coil tapping effects. It is available in tremolo and fixed bridge models.

It does sound like a humbucker guitar but the output is weaker than a current model SG. If you wanted to push an amplifier or a distortion/overdrive effect harder with it there are many inexpensive clean boost pedals available. One EQ/clean boost I tried worked wonderfully in pushing the music store Laney stack to sabbathy goodness. I must say the tremolo seemed to me to be a piece of shit, but then again I like Floyd Roses if I want to use a trem at all.

The model I'm getting the cash together to buy has a retro shiny light blue metallic finish. This is both absurdly tasteless, spectacular, tacky and undeniably cool, just like cheap mirrored shades. Speaking of such I'm surprised that Billy Gibbons isn't seen playing these more often.

At the time of writing these guitars are available for sale new.

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