Mixed and maxed
Are we doomed to a future of the same old classic designs? Not if Smitty Guitars has anything to do with it – these originals mix up their influences
eric ‘Smitty’ Smid started playing guitar in his teens during the mid-70s, inspired by discovering the late Jimi Hendrix. He started his nickname-based custom guitar company nearly a decade ago: based in Nieuw-Vennep, a few kilometres south west of Amsterdam, Eric builds primarily bolt-ons with the occasional set-neck design, with the help of his son. “I’m more of a ‘Fender’ guy,” he tells us. “It’s always been Strats and Teles that were my first guitars. Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray Vaughan…”
Unsurprisingly, the Strat- and Tele-based Smitty Classics are very popular. “I could build those forever,” he tells us, “but I always
have my own creations – I like to put my own creativity into my own models.”
Along with those Classics, Eric currently offers four original outlines, which can be custom ordered (90 per cent of his builds are custom orders; he doesn’t build for stock). Model 1 has rounded Gretsch-like lower bouts with a more slanted Tele-alike shoulder and treble horn.
“My first electric guitar was actually a ES-335 copy by Welson. It had a spruce top – though I didn’t know that at the time, I was around 13 or 14. That inspired me to do an ES-style guitar, but I mixed that with a Fender Coronado. I wasn’t a fan of carved tops; I like them flat for the looks and playability and construction-wise. I also make a set-neck version of this one.”
Model 2 (“My ‘Tele’,” laughs Eric) retains that upper body style but with a reversed offset lower body, a solidbody design that’s a blank canvas for any hardware or pickup configuration you can think of. Model 3, on review here, keeps that reversed base but has a more extended Jazzmaster-ish horn.
“It came to me in a dream,” says Eric. “Seriously, I just woke up in the middle of the night and thought, ‘Hey, let’s put a horn on that Model 2 body.’”
Model 4, as you can see, is Eric’s take on a non-reverse Firebird. “It’s pretty much anything goes – you dream it and I’ll build it,” confirms Eric, who will build you your own-design guitar. “If you work with the right materials, then what can go wrong? It’s all doable.”
Our Model 3 might have its Jazzmaster DNA, but that’s really down to the vibrato and bridge, which are both by Mastery, a hugely clever and functional redesign that means we have a vibrato system with the feel and, to some extent, the sound of the original but one that stays in tune. The bridge design is crucial. It drops into the original style cups but doesn’t rock and has much more contact; the two saddle blocks can be set for height and intonation and it’s beautifully engineered.
The opulent flame maple neck adds some colour and interest: the headstock and heel are a lovely deep amber, while the neck back appears to be bare wood (it’s actually oiled and waxed), lighter and greyer in colour. While the ageing to the body is very nicely done, the neck looks and feels a little newer as if it needs a few sweaty, long gigs to wear it in a little. The flatter camber and medium jumbo frets, again, slightly add to a more contemporary feel.
The control setup is simple here with no dual circuits and the like, just master volume and tone, the latter with a pull-
switch to voice the neck-facing coil of the covered bridge humbucker, made by Eric, like the Cool P90. While that soapbar is direct-mounted to the body with rubber tube ‘springs’, the bridge pickup is suspended from the tortoiseshell scratchplate, which also holds the output jack. A right-angle lead is pretty essential, not least with the long armed vibrato.
Our Model 4 is still a bolt-on with a very similar Fender-scale neck (though with no amber tint) and obviously with a reverse headstock, yet the bigger body here is alder, which contributes to a heavier build. Aside from the neck and its join, it’s altogether more Gibson-like with a Gotoh Nashvillestyle tune-o-matic and stud tailpiece, four controls laid out in Gibson-style and three Lollar custom mini-humbuckers. The shoulder-placed toggle selects neck, bridge or both as you’d expect, and the middle pickup only comes into play when you pull up the neck pickup’s tone control, giving neck and middle, bridge and middle, and all three in middle position.
Both Model 3 and 4 guitars use similar electronics: Emerson Pro 500k pots, Switchcraft output jacks and an Alpha pull/ push pot. Along with that, the Model 3 and the neck pickup of the Model 4 use Soviet K409-Y 0.022microfarad grey tone caps; the
“I just woke up one night and thought, ‘let’s put a horn on that Model 2 body’”
bridge pickup on the Model 4 uses a slightly heavier brick-coloured K409-Y rated at 0.033 microfarads. The Model 3’s oversized pickup routes indicate an almost modularstyle build that would allow you to load in pretty much any dual-pickup configuration, either at order or simply by swapping over to a pre-cut and loaded alternative scratchplate. All the electronics mount to it, so it would be pretty quick to swap.
Feel & Sounds
Despite their similar Fender-like scale lengths, the differing geometry of the guitars most profoundly affects the strapped-on feel. Our Model 4 does the ‘long neck’ Firebird/SG thing – even the Model 3’s neck seems to stick out a couple of frets more than our reference Strat. That’s observation, not criticism, as both hang extremely well, though a textured strap helps to stop the slightly neck-heavy Model 4 from tipping.
Both necks here adopt a biggish full C, the Model 4 slightly bigger and deeper in depth, and both benefitted from a light rub with a fine abrasive pad (if they were ours, we’d probably apply some more coats of oil, too). The nicely rounded fingerboard edges go some way to remove that slightly new neck feel. Setup-wise, both fall into modern protocol with 1.6mm string height on both treble and bass. The Model 3 needed a slight truss rod tweak to give a little relief and remove a slight ‘zing’ to the response – easily done via the open hole rod access and, of course, it’s a two-way truss rod.
The acoustic response is very different between the two models. Model 3 has a slightly trashy, brash response with considerable volume, which is sharply contrasted by the smoother, more controlled and a little compressed voice of the more stately and mature Model 4.
Plugged in, these characters underpin what we hear and, collectively, they span a lot of ground. The Model 3 bridge is clear but with some tough texture and rasp, and just loves a gnarly overdrive or fuzz. Split, it’s a thinner voice, but it retains great character with a little Tele to its punch, either on its own or mixed with that P-90. Show this a crunchy boosted Fender amp and it’s a real roots voice. The
P-90 by comparison is quite thickly voiced, adding a luscious bed to the pickup mix and producing more than characterful, big-boned leads. There’s quite a percussive bite overall, definitely more ‘Fender’ than ‘Gibson’, not least its grainy texture that covers a lot of ground. If you’re a Strat player, the long arm of the vibrato feels a bit alien, but the subtle waggle – and in-tune character – just adds to the retro ride.
The Model 4 couldn’t be more different. First, its lower output might need compensating for (we just kicked in a slight clean boost), but its mixture of ingredients produces an exceptional clean ringing voice that redefines jangle. And that’s just the bridge pickup, which, whether paired back by the construction materials and bridge style or not, is single coil-like clean but without the spike. Add a touch of crunch and a big reverb and it sounds cathedral-like huge. The neck pickup is a little louder, but adds depth to the highs without a hint of mud; the clarity is a beautiful match for the bridge. Meanwhile, the mix, for any soul or pop vibe, is snappy, textured and sort of sits
Model 4’s mixture of ingredients produces a clean ringing voice that redefines jangle
between a Tele mix and a low-output Les Paul mix. Glorious.
Pull up that switch on the neck tone and you introduce the middle pickup. With the volumes full up, your neck selection on the three-way toggle becomes a Strattier neck and middle; likewise, the bridge. In the mix position, all three are on and… well, it’s not always our favourite sound, but here jangle meets depth with some Fender-y in-between bounce for flavour. A neat thing is that if you’re on bridge or neck position in this mode, as you pull back the volume it voices the middle pickup, a great little trick that works very well, adding to the immense number of subtle shades this guitar produces. It could sit in so many genres, from the 60s jangle of The Byrds, the
psychedelic swagger of The Stones, most of The Beatles, and if Mike Campbell doesn’t know about this guitar, he should, either to run through his old bands’ tunes or indeed his new band’s repertoire. Quite a piece.
Verdict
Eric ‘Smitty’ Smid will make you any Fender-style guitar of your dreams and we doubt you’d be disappointed, but the appeal here is of a more mixed-up, creative vision, and it’s hugely rewarding. These are two stand-out instruments, but very different in their sounds. Vibrato aside, there’s very little ‘Jazzmaster’ in Model 3, but it remains a beefy, textured and quite dirty Fender-y solidbody, moving from almost Tele-like punch with the bridge pickup split to beefy classic rock (dare we mention early Van Halen?) with a huge-sounding P-90 in context. The Model 4 initially sounds a little demure, but compensate for the lower output mini-hum’s and you’re rewarded with a beautiful clean humbucker-meetssingle-coil voice that is jangle heaven with bite and smoothness in equal measure via its neat circuit.
Okay, so there’s no shortage of small shop builders that will make you a fabulous guitar for around £3k. All we can say is that not all of them have quite the sonic vision or guitar-playing experience of Eric Smid. You really should experience these.