GUILD S-200 T-BIRD & HAGSTROM H-III £745 & £589
Our obsession with all things 60s continues as we check out two switchladen blasts from yesteryear to discover whether they’re still valid today…
While Guild’s early history was centred on archtops and hollowbodies, clearly inspired by the Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar, its first solidbody range that appeared in the early 60s was very much en vogue with that swinging decade. Of that range, the S-200 Thunderbird was introduced in 1964 and ran through to 1968 before Guild went for a more conservative – and very Gibson SG-like – restyling.
Hagstrom’s dual decade of electric guitar manufacture produced a slew of models (many appeared under different brand names such as Kent in the USA and Futurama in the UK) that referenced classics such as the Les Paul and ES-335, not to mention this reasonably conventionallooking H-III, which was launched in 1965, along with the twin pickup H-II. In today’s range, these guitars fall into the RetroScape series with more leftfield designs including the Impala and Condor, but like the nownamed Guild S-200 T-Bird, they share a bit of an obsession with slide-switches for pickup changes and tone colouration.
Where to start? Both guitars share the same Gibson scale length and Hagstrom’s Vintage Tremar vibrato just like the originals. The H-III has a Strat-meets-SG vibe with a 41mm-thick alder body with pointed offset horns and plenty of SG-like edge chamfering. The maple neck is bolton, quite heavily glossed on the back and topped with the synthetic Resinator (which we suspect is similar to the Richlite used by Godin and Martin, among others). The dot-inlaid ’board’s camber is relatively flat at 381mm (15 inches) with wide and low wire (which could do with a final buff ) and simple dot inlays. The head rakes back like a Gibson, but, importantly, has straight string travel over the lubricated nut to the generic but good-enough tuners. Two base-placed strap buttons also mean, coincidentally like the T-Bird, that it’ll stand up leant against a wall or amp.
The T-Bird, by comparison, looks like a school project that went a little west. Its slightly cut-out square base means it’ll stand up leant against your amp, so the flip-out rear stand that it originally featured is, not surprisingly, omitted here. If the base makes a certain sense, the different horns look unconnected, although the wide waist, curves and over-long body give an appearance that does grow on us. At 39mm in depth, it’s thinner than the H-III, but has those SG-like edge chamfers again, which are quite heavy on the bass-side, simulating both forearm and belly-cut contours. It’s a little lighter, too, despite its all-mahogany construction, and we have a bound rosewood ’board with narrower higher-fret wire, cream binding that’s been pretty nicely rolled, smart block inlays and, ahem, that headstock (see the school project comment).
The Tremar vibrato is a peculiar device. A top plate pivots in the upturned front of the baseplate, which is stopped from being pulled off by the string tension by a single screw attached to a spring. This sets the travel of the unit, specifically the up-bend,
and with it the height of the arm in playing position. The spring itself sits under the baseplate in the body. The arm pushes into a tubular rod that’s connected to a sizeable collar with a large slot-head screw. You then have to get the thread of that screw to locate into a hole in the arm and then screw it down. Actual travel is pretty limited and it feels rather industrial.
Which, finally, brings us to the pickups and switching systems. Of the former, the LB-1 ‘little buckers’ are well-known and feature on numerous Guilds in the current Newark St range: a clean, relatively lowoutput sound. Hagstrom’s C-Spins are an unknown quantity – ceramic-loaded single coils seemingly encapsulated into their covers. The chrome rings are purely visual as the pickups mount to the scratchplate, just like a Strat.
Guild’s switching system boasts four rotary controls and four slide switches, but has two ‘modes’, like the Jazzmaster. Mode 1 imitates the Jazzmaster’s ‘rhythm’ circuit and just voices the neck pickup with its own smaller-knobbed volume and tone controls. Mode 2 allows both pickups to be used: they are controlled by the three slide switches on the upper chromed control plate (a bass-cut and both neck and bridge on/off ), while the larger metal-topped knobs control volume and tone.
All the H-III’s electrics are mounted on its scratchplate with the exception of the Strat-style dished output jack (the T-Bird has a chassis jack on the scratchplate, so you’re best off with a right-angled jack on your lead). Here we have an on/off ‘kill switch’ to the upper-left on the neck pickup and a rotary master volume, with a resistor/capacitor treble bleed circuit to retain the highs as you turn down. Above that volume control are six slide switches: the top three simply turn each pickup on or
There’s quite a difference to the strapped-on or seated playing feel: the H-iii feels more conventional bolton; the T-Bird is more the elongated ‘long neck’ feel of an SG
off; the fourth switch down, Master Tone, is a preset tone roll-off; the next down, Mute, does the same but with less high-end cut; while the lowest switch, Top, is a bass-cut.
The H-III is smaller-bodied than the T-Bird and there’s quite a difference to the strapped-on or seated playing feel: the H-III feels more conventional bolt-on; the T-Bird is more like the elongated ‘long neck’ feel of an SG. Both share a slightly plinky acoustic response, no doubt in part due to their vibrato design. As we said, the Tremar does feel stiff, and while that’s fine for a light waggle, any bigger bends can land you in trouble. Not only do you feel like you’re struggling with your gear stick on a slippery corner, but tuning stability is at best just about okay on the Hagstrom and of the ‘get sacked from your band’ type on the Guild. Aside from the usual string stretching, we spent some time on the T-Bird filing and smoothing the saddle grooves and the nut slots of the splayed G and D strings – and still feel a little unconfident taking it on stage. The Hagstrom’s system seems more sorted; its roller saddle bridge is an omission on the Guild.
sounds
The sounds here are as diverse as the looks. The Hagstrom’s voice is quite biting though Strat-like, simply because of its three pickups. We get the added all-three-on and Tele-like neck and bridge, of course, while the Master Tone and Mute switches simulate rolling back a conventional tone control quite a lot and a little respectively. The Top switch thins the sound a little too much perhaps, with these biting single coils. That said, there’s plenty to experiment with and there are some pristine cleans that sound nicely sustaining through our Yamaha THR Dual head, or more piercing through a Vox AC10 where the H-III does
a neat time-travelling step right back to 60s Chicago or Brian Jones-era Stones. But toughen up the gain and add a rattier overdrive and you hear where its punk/ grunge credentials come from. It does nasty rather well.
The T-Bird, with its more Gibson-esque build, has a sweeter voice. In Mode 2, the bass-cut acts rather like a coil-split in terms of sound, thinning the not-overthick ’buckers for some pretty convincing Tele-ish tones. With that bypassed, and some classic rock Marshall voicing, it does anything from punchy Who to gritty Stones, garage rock and so much more. These LB-1s really do hit that mid-point between jangle and raunch – a hugely classic sound. Mode 1 just voices the neck pickup and, yes, you can set that for a slightly muted ‘jazz’ comping sound then flick over to more bite from the Mode 2, but we do wonder whether that’s relevant for most players today. Also, oddly, as you turn down the tone control in Mode 1, the volume drops too.
Verdict
With their shared vibratos, scale length and multi-switching, not to mention their 60s heritage, these two pieces certainly have some commonality. For many players, though, anything beyond a Fender lever switch or Gibson toggle will be problematic, and while both produce credible sounds, neither would be our first choice as an allround workhorse. Meanwhile, the vibrato imparts its own, quite old-style tonal stamp along with a rather stiff feel (certainly compared with a Bigsby) and dodgy tuning stability on the Guild.
There’s plenty of versatility from the H-III’s three pickups and on/off switches – sounds that you don’t find on a regular Strat – and those preset tone switches, especially with some punkier, nastier grit and gain, do become really useful, although they could be replicated with a standard tone control. The Guild’s blend of SG-like mahogany push and those cleaner, edgier humbuckers make for a really usable instrument that, seated or strapped on, is far more sensible than it might look. Its dual mode circuit, however, brings little to the table, unless you want to use the ‘rhythm’ and ‘lead’ concept. That said, its bass-cut switch is a neat ‘coilsplit’ simulator – not dissimilar to the Dry Switch on Yamaha’s new Revstars. While its vibrato performance is sub-standard, you don’t have to use it and along with its characterful core voice, it’s a near-perfect electric slide guitar.
But the appeal here is pretty much what these don’t do. For anyone looking for a different style or flavour – from original Chicago blues through to contemporary rock – there’s an awful lot to like at prices that really won’t break the bank.