 | DeArmond M75T by Guild |  | |
Review of DeArmond M75T by Guild
By Emory Ball (of the bellbats)
I was really jazzed to be asked to review this guitar as I have been
looking forward to their sales release state side for some time. I first
saw the DeArmonds while I was in Scotland in the summer of 98 and had
been looking for one on this side of the pond for awhile. What really
first drew me to this instrument was it's looks. I have been wanting a
Grestch Silver Jet for a long time but can never come up with the
scratch, and this guitar has the same looks with out the prohibitive
price tag.
The model I took home to review was in fact not a silver jet but a
sparkle blue instrument who's finish reminded me and my band mates of a
70's GTO color, way cool. It came out fitted with a Bigsby style vibrato
bar and two DeArmond pickups. However it does not come with a case and
when I got it home I discovered that it would not fit into my Les Paul
case, so plan on ordering a fitted case if you buy one. On the good side
the low price should leave ample funds for a nice case and then some.
Next was the set up and finish. As I have already mentioned the finish
looked beautiful and I saw no flaws in it, the set up was another story.
The guitar required a bit of attention as the nut has some catches in
the nut making tuning a bit difficult, nothing major, just a slight flaw
and easily fixed.
For the tone test I plugged into my re-issue Fender Vibrolux with no
effects. Overall the guitar had a pleasant well rounded tone, the
DeArmond pickups had a real vintage quality to them. The guitar was
clear and chiming when strummed or picked and had a good range of
harmonics. When I really dug into the strings the sound beefed up
nicely. I did have some trouble finding a point on my amp where the
sound seemed constant in all pick-up configuration, i.e. what sounded
great on neck only and neck/bridge did not sound quite right on bridge
only, so it might take some tweaking to get everything just right. Next
I plugged into my Marshall 50 watt master volume and dialed up some good
tube crunch. The guitar sounded great cranked up and seemed very
reactive to my picking in how the pickups drove the amp. I still ran
into some problems getting a balance for all three pick-up
configurations, but this might not bother some one else who was looking
for radically different sounds out of each setting.
Over all I found the guitar to be an excellent buy for the price, the
sounds were good, the playability good (most likely excellent with a good
set up), the construction solid, and the finish great. My main concern
with this guitar would having to change amp settings for the DeArmond,
not a problem in the studio but possibly annoying on stage as I like all
my guitars to be able to function on the same amp settings. However this
would make an Excellent all around guitar with a great price.
-Emory
Emory Ball is a well respected guitarist/ bassist in the NC Triangle area.
| Article Statistics: |
| Date Added: 09/05/2001 |
| Viewed:9404 |
| Current Comments: 0 |
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