UNDER THE HOOD
What’s crammed into the seemingly simple circuits of these new G300s?
As you can see, there’s a lot of wire in the pretty small cavity, most of it surrounding the four-pole five-way lever switch, which gives us (from position 1 to 5) bridge humbucker, outer screw single coils in parallel, both humbuckers, inner slug single coils in parallel, and neck humbucker. Obviously, both Duncan pickups have fourconductor wiring to achieve this.
It’s a simple, modern-style circuit and the pots are Alpha ‘Made in Korea’ mini-types, both 500k. The volume is labelled with a ‘B’ (linear taper), while the tone is a ‘D’ that’s pretty similar to a standard A (audio taper) – CTS calls it an A2 taper. Along with these different tapers, the simple brown Mylar tone cap has a 333J code, .033μf, extensively used by PRS, for example.
As we said in our previous G300 Pro review, Cort really doesn’t big up the pickups here. The TB4 is the wider Trembuckerspaced JB and the SH-2 is the Jazz Model, effectively the brand’s Hot Rodded set, which were originally conceived in London in the early 70s by Seymour for the late Jeff Beck, which as we documented in our recent tribute in issue 495.
Both pickups direct-mount to the body, although there is some foam rubber underneath that allows a little height adjustment. Due to the 24-fret neck, the neck pickup sits closer to the bridge than it would on a 22-fret guitar, something that quite possibly helps the position 4 slug single coils to sound quite Strat-y. Measured at output, our JB’s DCR reads 16.74kohms and the neck is 7.07k. Both are fully potted with Alnico V magnets.
Removing the larger backplate reveals the simple dual-spring setup for the vibrato.
Feel & Sounds
Despite the mainly mahogany build, both guitars are light and very comfortable. While the outline shape might be a bit too generic ‘modern super-S’ for some, it’s very ergonomically aimed and hangs really well on a strap – but it could just as easily be a comfortable sofa-noodler. There might be a strong whiff of ‘contemporary modern’ in the style but not in the actual neck shape.
These are Fender width (42mm or just under at the nut and 52mm by the 12th) with a pretty full-shouldered C profile that measures 21mm at the 1st fret and 23mm by the 12th on the Glam, while the Raw is about 0.5mm deeper. There’s certainly quite a contemporary compound radius to the fingerboard, which starts at 305mm (12 inches) at the nut and flattens out to 400mm (15.75 inches) by the 24th.
A little more edge rounding to the fingerboard and the fret ends wouldn’t go amiss, but it’s hard to fault the fretting, with its medium jumbo-sized stainless-steel wire that measures approximately 2.7mm wide and around 1.45mm high. All in, both are very good players, particularly with that almost bare wood feel to the silky satin neck finish – it reminds us of older necks that have been refretted.
One very impressive feature is the vibrato. The all-steel unit is based on Gotoh’s 510 design. With its tensionadjustable push-fit arm and in combination with the slippery nut and locking tuners, it’s very stable with down-bend to slack and up-bend of a minor 3rd on the G string, thanks to that back rout. Another big tick on the already impressive feature list.
Sonically, these guitars are quite the proposition. Anyone who works at the gainier end of classic rock and beyond will be at home with the JB at the bridge, which kicks hard with a huge dollop of honky thick midrange. Yet pull the gain back to use it cleaner and it’s surprisingly smooth. The Jazz is a good foil, a PAF-style known for its added clarity, but on these G300s it simply sounds very nicely balanced and has us comping jazz clean or, with some welly, beautifully rounded and sustaining Santana. Both controls work well, especially the tone. To our ears, it’s almost like a voicing or character control that adds plenty of subtle colouration, especially with the wick turned up, while the volume only subtly loses the edge when pulled back, a nice way to tame the sizzle on a brighter gained amp voice. The combined slug single coils (position 4 on the five-way switch) sound a bit Stratlite but are a more than useful contrast; the screw-coil combination (position 2) sounds a smidge more Tele-like. While neither would challenge a half-decent example of those originals in an A/B test, they work very well on this platform, particularly with a little added modulation or a touch of compression to hone your funk chops.