Chris George Custom
Veteran guitar maker Chris George is the epitome of the solo luthier, crafting both electric and acoustic models to your taste. We check out his latest vision…
Longtime readers of Guitarist will be familiar with Chris George, who seems to be able to turn his hand to acoustic or electric guitars – tailored to your needs – with equal success. We threw out a challenge: we’ve got £2k to spend, make us a guitar. Some weeks later, and perfectly on time, this triple-pickup ‘concept’ guitar arrived sheathed in its Hiscox case, which is included in the price.
This latest build is typical of many of Chris’s electrics we’ve seen and played over the past few years. Hugely detailed with not a hair out of place, this very functional piece is based on a true Gibson-like scale length, the glued-in neck and body are African mahogany, while the body – slightly chambered under those two resonatorinspired soundholes – is topped with an invisibly centre-joined Franquette walnut top with light longitudinal and slightly wavy figure. Finish overall is immaculate natural nitro-cellulose, gloss on the body and super-smooth satin on the neck back. It’s all packed in a quite classic, almost
timeless style and given a strong whiff of retro with the trio of Duesenberg pickups and a USA B7 Bigsby.
Classic it may be, but Chris is far from a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist. The neck here, for example, employs a pair of carbon fibre rods that add reinforcement and stability, as Chris explains: “If it was a maple neck then I wouldn’t use the graphite rods, but for mahogany I do – even laminated. It does give it a bit of stiffness and that’s what I like in a build.”
The TonePros locking tune-o-matic bridge uses roller saddles and is recessed into the body, so the back angle to the B7’s tension bar is relatively shallow. Along with a slippery Graph Tech nut and locking TonePros tuners, this is one Bigsby system that stays in tune and has a beautifully smooth feel. Proof that it can be done.
There is more modernism in the choice of the UK-designed and made Freeway toggle switch, which gives two rows of three selections, meaning that with no pull-push pots or additional toggle switches, we get neck, both, bridge on the
this custom may have a classic style, but chris is far from a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist
‘down’ row; and neck and middle, neck and bridge, and middle and bridge on the upper three selections.
Duesenberg pickups might be a surprising choice to some gearheads, but the exact same LittleToaster mini-humbucker and ‘domino’ SingleTwin Mini noiseless ‘single coil’ (there are actually two single coils wound around magnetic poles and, judging by the DCR, wired in series) are used by Joe Walsh on his Duesenberg Alliance model, among others. Chris adds a third middleplaced SingleTwin to create a wide sonic selection via that Freeway switch. Note the way the pickups are installed – there are no mountings or rear cavities. Clever stuff.
The control circuit, then, along with that Freeway switch, packs in quite a bit of wiring. The rear cavity is copper-foil lined and we have a treble bleed circuit on the volume control and a 500k linear CTS volume pot with a 250k log tone pot, recommended by Duesenberg. It does give a slightly slower taper to the volume, which you may or not prefer over a standard log pot.
feel & sounds
As befits its single-cut style, the guitar comes in at 3.95kg (8.69lb), a little heavier than Chris would like, he reveals: “The chambering is quite modest and perhaps I’ll take this further in the future to add a little ‘air’ and some weight reduction.” The truth is that it’s lighter than recent Les Pauls we’ve evaluated and, strapped on, the guitar has a very centred feel that reminds this writer of a Les Paul Special with its slab body and fairly classic geometry.
While Chris will happily build you your neck profile of choice, the profile here doesn’t aim to be fashionably baseballbat-like and isn’t based on a historic model. At a shade over 21mm deep at the 1st fret widening out to 24.9mm by the 12th fret, it sits between Gibson’s bigger profile of the current ’50s Standard and the Slim Taper of the ’60s Standard or Classic. It just feels very right – it disappears and you get on with the playing.
Which, frankly, is very easy. The clean and unfussy fingerboard, like the scale, follows the Gibson recipe with a 305mm (12-inch) camber and faultlessly installed Evo Gold frets – even the fingerboard edges are bound with strips of the same Macassar ebony to hide the fret tangs. The setup here, too, is very mainstream, which all ties in with a guitar that you could happily pick up mid-set and remain unphased. It’s functional and very fit for purpose. With some custom builds, you’re unsure as to whether you should play it or just sit back and admire the craft – this is telling us to find a stage, sharpish.
The combination of the scale length and the relatively shallow back angle from the bridge to the vibrato seems to give the Custom a very slinky feel. The 10s actually feel like nines, if you know what we mean; this heavy-handed writer might well up the gauge. Yet it doesn’t sound like the sort of guitar you’d just bash out your cowboy chords on with your foot on the monitor. No, like the design, the sounds we hear are quite considered and subtle, and veer on the Fender-y brighter side of the tracks with a beautifully enveloping smooth sustain tail and some give to the attack. It sort of sounds like a Fender/Gretsch mash-up through an old-school valve compressor.
There’s twang aplenty with some strong pokey kick from the bridge pickup, which on the one hand slightly overpowers the two ‘domino’ single coils, but also adds to a rather Jekyll and Hyde character. The single coils certainly sound nicely Fender-y in the mix positions (a little more Tele-like on the neck and bridge together) with a subtly rounded but still sparkly high-end. Switch to the bridge on its own, though, and kick in some gnarly overdrive and you’ll find a dirty bite with plenty of Tele bridge brightness that’d satisfy any alt-rockers from Neil Young to Jack White. The nearperfect Bigsby works on both of these sounds for light shimmers or more random waggle, and this is quite a lively-sounding guitar that, at gain or volume, sits on the right side of microphonic.
Verdict
Does Chris George have a style? In terms of extremely tidy functional craft, yes – but he’s equally at home with steel-string and latterly nylon-string acoustics, more complex Variax-loaded electrics or posher ‘boutique’ builds with bling aplenty.
This example of his craft is quite a chameleon in terms of its sounds. It has a quite classic, considered neck shape and one of the best Bigsby setups we’ve come across for a while. The triple-pickup setup with the expansive Freeway toggle switch means we’re still finding new tonal shades every time we plug in.
But the best bit is the price. Okay, we don’t have so-called ‘boutique’ pickups, but you can always add those, although we have to say this Duesenberg trio impressed us. It just goes to show you really can get into the handmade luthier style, from a very competent and experienced maker, for a lot less than you might think.
the triple-pickup setup with a Freeway toggle switch means we’re still finding new tonal shades