CORT G300 PRO

A modern classic in the making?

Cort has been making guitars for many decades but mainly for other people. While many brands prefer not to admit the exact factory that makes their guitars, many do, like PRS who happily extol the virtues of their Indonesian partner in crafting their SE electrics. A few years back legendary British luthier Hugh Manson – who never minces his words when it comes to guitar construction – chose Cort to partner with for the rather good Matt Bellamy guitars. And slowly, not least with increased presence in the UK, Cort’s own-brand instruments are gaining rightful respect.

Why? Well, if the name itself has little draw, it’s all about quality and price. This new-for-2021

G300 Pro, for example, has the sort of specification that a few years back would only come from a high-line or Custom Shop maker. Turning its back on the vintage obsession of many, the G300 Pro is progressively forward-looking yet remains the sort of instrument that’s equally at home with high-octane shred as it is with pristine pop/funk, classic rock and hair metal.

But there’s not a hair out of place here when it comes to the build. Yes, there’s a rather generic ‘modern electric’ look to the elongated Strat-based body but it’s far from over stylised; it’s basswood with a 6mm maple top that helps to keep the weight well below 8lbs and we have curves and contours in all the right places. That contouring includes a nicely rounded heel where four inset screws hold the neck snuggly in place.

And what a neck it is. With a deep caramel colour the roasted maple is very lightly matt finished that’ll burnish to a low gloss with playing and a slim but not skinny depth with quite a full shouldered D profile. The separate fingerboard is made of the same material with a very contemporary compound radius (12-16”) and 24 very well-installed stainless steel jumbo frets. An increasing popular wheel-type truss rod adjustor means any slight set-up tweaks are quick and easy and although like some modern brands, Charvel for example, there’s no graphite rod reinforcement we do get those glow-in-the-dark

JUST AS RELEVANT FOR MODERN METALLERS AS COVERS BANDS

Luminlay side dots.

Hardware is just as impressive: the two-post vibrato really nods towards Gotoh’s modern classic 510 with its push fit, tension adjustable arm and block-style stainless steel saddles with steel baseplate and block. Thanks to a slight back rout there’s plenty of travel but tuning stability proves excellent, helped by the well-cut and slippery Graph Tech nut and the rear-lock tuners which have staggered height posts so only one string tree is necessary on the top two strings.

But it’s the pickup set and the switching that elevate this to the next level. While the majority of Far Eastern axes at this pricepoint will feature often perfectly good pickups you really can’t

argue with the classic Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz set-up here. Don’t forget, these designs go back to the birth of Seymour’s tenure as the world’s number one passive pickup maker: these aren’t copies or clones, they’re the real deal.

Fire up a crunchy amp, switch to bridge and that’s pretty much everything covered from classic rock to the present day. If Cort made a single pickup version of this guitar we’d still be raving. The JB kicks with its throaty raw that’s as current now as it was in the seventies. But that’s far from all we have here. From that full JB in position one on the 5-way selector we get the screw single coils of both humbuckers in parallel, both humbuckers together, the slug single coils of both in parallel and, finally, the neck humbucker. The single coil mixes provide two shades of Fender-y funk while the full Jazz at neck sits between those and the full bluster of the JB with a beautiful clarity that allows a gained solo poke through a dense mix. The dual humbucker mix might be less useful in gained settings but on a cleaner amp it’s a pretty classic, snappy combination.

The G300 Pro is exactly the sort of guitar that doesn’t get in the way of the player and it’s just as relevant for the practising student or modern metal merchant as it is for those diverse and covers band gigs. Track one down before someone realises they’ve cocked up the pricing. It really is that good. Dave Burrluck