Group Test: Single-pickup Round-up

Here are four super-smart electrics that prove you can get a frightening array of tones from one hard-working bridge pickup

You don’t need this review to persuade you that a singlepickup electric can produce some of the most divine tones ever committed to tape. Just dig into the record bag and pull out some Mountain, whose Leslie West wrung so much tone out of his Gibson Les Paul Junior it ought to have been seized from him and West tried for witchcraft.

We’re not saying that you’ll nail West’s tone here – though the Gordon Smith GS-1 60 is spec’d to do so and the Godin Summit Classic plays a similar field – but you might find a guitar that has the tone you’ve been looking for, and that nothing else comes close. Shredders looking for a guitar as classically American as a glass bottle of Coke might never find anything to usurp the EVH 5150; with that hellacious finish and period-appropriate spec, it’s surely irresistible to Eddie Van Halen’s disciples, even at that price. And those practising the dark arts, demanding the harshest metal tones and supreme playability, might well discover that the LTD EC-BKM Black Metal is their Excalibur. All four are different, but each one is testament to the idea that a neck pickup simply isn’t for everyone.