Vox SDC-1 Mini Electric + Giulietta 3PS + Giulietta 3D

LET’S LOOK OF TWO INNOVATIVE ARCHTOPS AND A PINT-SIZED PRACTISE BUDDY. REVIEW BY

After a bit of time reviewing guitars, one can’t help but notice the staying power of classic designs. Here at AG, we have an awful lot of guitars come across the desk that are basically tweaking at the edges of the iconic Gibson and Fender blueprints. Indeed, many fine companies enjoy decades of lucrative business with said tweaking as the core business plan.

Obviously this indicates that post-war designers got a hell of a lot right, what with our trusty Strats and LPs still holding high honour despite the transformative impact of digital technology in the rest of guitar culture, the music industry and society at large. On the other hand, there’s definitely a conservatism to guitar design. Despite the incredible creative possibilities afforded by digital sound (or even just a different body shape), the world of luthiery has not always stuck the landing when rolling out innovative products that capture the heart of the customer.

Granted, Line 6 still has a diverse lineup of axes sporting its Variax technology, and fanned frets seem here to stay, but does anyone remember Gibson’s MaGIC system and its digital guitars? If you do, you’d know Gibson would probably like to forget that part of its rocky road coming into the new millennium.

The three Vox guitars we have today all challenge convention to a greater or lesser extent. Two of them are innovations on the archtop guitar build – one of the cooler-looking, but more temperamental ways of making a guitar. The other is a pint-sized practise buddy. We’ll have a look at the archtops first, both of which fall under the Giulietta line.

Both the VGA-3D and the VGA-3PS are stylish acoustic-electric guitars with a striking appearance. Vox have innovated on the standard archtop design by rendering the body a bit smaller – not only does this make the guitar a bit more portable and a bit less unwieldy, but it also helps minimise feedback: a known issue with archtops. Your mileage may vary, but the art-deco contours of the Giulietta line are likely to appeal to a guitarist wanting a look that feels classic, but is actually a fresh body plan.

Not content to just make their guitars look nice, Vox have also included a detachable muting strip that sits between the bridge and the tailpiece. This ringing is an issue for archtop guitars and other axes with old-school bridge systems. Vox’s solution here is elegant in all respects. While both guitars did require a bit of TLC coming out of the box, it wasn’t anything too bad, and we can happily report that the overall build quality is good.

While the hardware and electronics are not absolute top-of-the-line, they are quiet and eminently playable – more than appropriate for mid-priced instruments.

VGA-3D

The most interesting of the axes here is definitely the VGA-3D. It’s a sincere, yet user-friendly attempt to bridge the digital and analog divide we alluded to earlier. It’s a similar concept to Line 6’s Variax, leveraging modern tech to provide a many-guitarsin-one-kind of instrument. Whereas Variax has more customisation options and a separate app, Vox’s proprietary AREOS-D Digital Modelling System aims to be a bit more user-friendly and immediate.

It runs on four AA batteries for power and is simply controlled from a small panel on the top of the body. There is an LCD display, a tuner, and settings are controlled with the normal volume/tone knobs, buttons and knobs on the panel, and the three-way pickup selector. By consulting the manual, twisting knobs and flicking switches, the player can easily

conjure up a wide variety of instrument emulations with a bit of common sense and experimentation.

While many of these sounds seem intended to go direct to front-of-house, there are also solid dry pickup signals on board as well, for use with a conventional amp, pedal setup. We really liked the inclusion of a headphone input for silent and mobile practise.

Vox haven’t provided much information on exactly how the VOX AREOS-D system works beyond saying it interacts with their custom magnetic pickup and piezo system, but they do claim “the sophisticated approach results in a highly accurate and articulate representation of the modelled instrument.” This is a fair statement of the VGA-3D’s capabilities. As a rule, the sounds are both useful and enjoyable to play. You have several different acoustic models, including a nylon string, 12-string acoustic and electric, resonator, banjo, sitar and old-school lead synth. We probably forgot something in there, but the truth is that all these sounds are quite usable and pleasing.

There’s a simple preset system included so that you have some options for switching between custom configurations. Using just the pickup switch, you can access three per song. Each custom sound comes with a configurable effect – either reverb or drive.

The reverb is a nice, lush chamber sound that is well-considered for the emulations on hand; the drive honestly reminded us more of a classic rock fuzz than the archetypal pedal or amp sound, but this scribe is an unreconstructed riffboy – Vox didn’t design an elegant digital archtop for him to crank the gain and thrash “Battery” out on it.

Which leads us to the next point: this is a wellmade, good sounding instrument that integrates digital tech well. So who is it for? If you love your looping pedal and creating layered music with it, the VGA-3D will be a great ally in that endeavour. If you have a live gig or a practise regimen that requires an array of acoustic instruments, this is almost a no-brainer. Being able to go from, say, a smooth jazz clean tone, to a resonator or banjo sound, can potentially save many performers the hassle and worry of carrying multiple instruments around.

As signalled by its aesthetic, the VGA-3D stylistically leans towards these kinds of genres. Players who focus on rock and riffs won’t find much that’s compelling here, but then again, the instrument wasn’t designed for them. If you a genre-skipping, explorative player who is relatively uninterested in getting heavy, this guitar should definitely be something you try out.

VGA-3PS

The other contender in the Giulietta line is more straightforward than its digitally-equipped sibling. Sharing many of the same acoustic and hardware features, its signal flow is quite different. The 3PS boasts a Hybrid Bridge, a bridge with a piezo pickup in it, and the controls attached to the base of the pickguard. More classic archtop designs would either forgo a pickup entirely or mount it the electronics in the traditional fashion by cutting into the body. By interfering less with the guitar body, sustain and tone are meant to be improved. This is certainly true compared to the VGA-3D, which lacks a little body compared to its more acoustic companion.

The 3PS has a nice, rich low-end and good tails on the notes, not coming off too badly at all compared to our much bigger Cole Clark steel-string.

There’s also a Super Capacitor Preamp System – a switchable active electronic design that gives a much louder signal out of the guitar than the normal passive operation. We found that it was clear, responsive and noiseless. Depending on how you are playing the guitar with it, the active output can be very bright. That’s no big deal though, as it could be useful in some applications and is easily mitigated with the tone control if not. We also appreciated the low-end control pot. While it does need to be tweaked with a screwdriver, we can see this being very welcome in muddy live environments or recording applications.

It’s easy to use the controls under the pickguard – a logical placement that doesn’t take away any usability. The active electronics are charged by a USB input near the cable jack. This is the first USB-charging guitar we’ve come across – it’s a cool idea and works well, and it’s great to see rechargeable power tech being used in a guitar design.

Overall, this is another win for Vox, which takes some of the best aspects of the VGA-3D and streamlines them for players with simple needs.

SDC-1

Last cab off the rank is this tiny terror: a pint-sized Gibson SG. This is one of those moments as a reviewer where we feel like it’s hard to add more than what the punter can tell by looking at the picture: the SDC-1 tunes and plays and sounds like a normal guitar, yet it is (obviously) very small. The neck is just under 48 centimetres long, and the rest of the body is scaled accordingly. The size brings with it all the expected benefits and limitations that come with such a design.

We see this as the most valuable option for kids or players with small hands who want to get started on the electric guitar early in life. It’s a quality instrument for the price: there is good tension on the neck, the pickup sounds fine, and despite the novelty factor, it is surprisingly playable. The SDC-1 provides a faithful approximation of a larger guitar that will be musical, exciting and cool for little sprogs whose hands are still growing.

Vox also pitches this instrument as a portable practise guitar. While it’s true that, combined with one of their mini jack amps, it makes for a truly tiny electric setup, we’re less convinced that many people will actually play this on public transport as the presser suggests. For anything more than basic finger strength, picking and scale exercises, the neck is just too different to the real thing. For example, chords that are a challenging stretch on a full neck, we can do with ease on the SDC-1. This raises some questions about whether techniques mastered on a mini-guitar will actually transfer over to a conventional neck.