UNDER THE HOOD
How the electrics measure up to the Gibson standard
Both guitars use the same Gibson-style circuit with a shoulder-placed toggle switch pickup selector and quite widely spaced volume and tone for each pickup. The pots all sit in a rear cavity, with a recessed cover plate that also bears the ‘Guild Guarantee’ label – always a nice touch. Circuit wise, there are no surprises with a green polyester film .022 microfarad (233J) capacitor on each tone, wired modern style with 500k pots. The HH model has simple coil-splits accessed via pull-switch on the individual volumes, not the more usual tone controls. The cavities are all screened, and whichever factory these come from they’ve clearly made a big effort to produce a tidy guitar.
Both HH and P90 pickup types are made by Booheung in Korea – like the pickups we’ve seen on other Newark St Guilds. The Guild HB-2 humbuckers on the HH feature the distinctive covers of both the larger HB-1 humbuckers and smaller LB-1 ‘mini-humbuckers’ fitted on the
P-90-style single coils can polarise opinion, but on the right guitar they can be glorious
Starfires, for example. Those original or replica HB-1s are the same width (treble to bass) as the industry standard Gibson humbucker but slightly broader as if the two coils inside are wider. As a consequence, the pickup mounting ring is larger than standard and has two heightadjustment screws on the bass side, too, so you can adjust both the height and tilt of the pickup to match the string angle. These HB-2s aim to offer the same tonality as the HB-1 but are standard humbucker-sized and sit in standard mounting rings. It means any standard-sized humbucker will fit. Good news, tone tweakers.
The Franz P90s differ from the Gibson standard as they look like standard soapbars but mount differently to the guitar. If you remove the cover via that single central bolt between the D and G strings’ polepieces, you can see mounting screws on each corner of the baseplate. Both neck and bridge pickups have two pieces of hard foam under their bases that act as cushions and allow a little height adjustment. To do that, you have to remove the covers, which means slackening the strings.
(approximately 2.73 by 1.08mm) and sit over the binding, which is slightly edge-rounded. Pretty tidy stuff.
P-90-style single coils can polarise opinion, but on the right guitar and in the right song they can be glorious, especially for those of us after a rootsy, rawer voice. Yes, they hum (the mix here is humcancelling, though) and these don’t sound or feel heavily potted at all. It’s an airy voice, spiky, punky at the bridge, thicker at the neck (and a little louder), but above all unrefined… and that’s a compliment. The HH actually sounds a little polite by comparison in humbucking mode – smoother but still with some spike and life. The splits do thin things out considerably, but dial in a little level boost and you’re certainly in the ballpark if you like your single-cuts cleaner and brighter, particularly on the neck pickup. In mix position, voicing the neck split with the full bridge cleans things up a little, too. These HB-2s don’t capture the power of the real thing when we plug in our 1976 Guild S-90, but with some pedal/amp adjustment that raw, bright-edged voice is almost there. Either way, both sit in the lower-output category compared with something like Gibson’s Burstbucker 1 and 2s on our modded 2019 Les Paul Classic.
Using both models for an ongoing recording project, however, reveals just how good ‘cheap’ guitars have become. Straight out of the boxes the setups are good, the guitars are in tune and stable, and while both would benefit from a little fine-tuning it’s not a necessity. Some hours later the tracks sound good and we’ve formed quite an attachment to the P90. The HH is little different – used for some cleaner parts and overdubs, and chasing a more hollow Gretsch-y voice, it really delivered, especially that split neck and full bridge mix.
Verdict
It’s fair to say that Guild has struggled to gain market share against more obvious classic brands. Even back in the day it was the guitar you played until you could afford a Gibson. That past perception is impossible to change, but the Newark St Collection offers considerable style, particularly if you dare to be a bit different.
And ‘a bit different’ sums up these two well-priced single-cuts, which move away from the original ‘midget’ jazz hollowbody
Using both models for a recording project reveals just how good ‘cheap’ guitars have become
M-75 Aristocrat to a contemporary voice that’s as at home with 60s hipsters as it is with much rockier and even heavier styles. From a practical point, the good weights here mean we have a pair of single-cuts that won’t bother you on a long set, and straight from the shipping boxes they were ready to go. Of course, it’s a combination of all their parts that result in what we hear – and that’s a subtly different texture and sound compared with more generic single-cuts. There’s character in spades and some vintage-styled class, all at a very tempting price.