Scott Henderson Discussion

[Anton]

Hey everyone, and a big "HI!" to Mr. Henderson personally! A huge fan of your work here.

For quite many years reading this forum and interviews I was wondering if you ever tried G&L Guitars: http://www.glguitars.com/instruments/usa/guitars/.
G&L is the last company Leo Fender created, and he's improved over and created a lot of great instruments and designs in this company.

The reason I bring this to your attention (though you may already tried them, so I'm just wasting your time then!), is because they have ASAT and Legacy lines, which are perfected versions of original Tele and Strat (meaning they try to keep these lines as close to classic models as possible). So Legacy is "vintage" Strat with new tremolo (Dual Fulcrum vibrato), which is AMAZINGLY stable compared to any other strat tremolo I've ever used (and work in both sides without any additional adjustments), and locking tuners, keeping guitar very stable in even heaviest dive bombing-SteveVai vibrato cases. Did you try these guitars? What do you think of them?

If you didn't try them yet, then models with "Z" in title may be interesting to you too - these are noiseless single-coils, which are quite good in high-gain situations. Well, that's pretty it - just a heads up in case you missed this company. I'd be happy to see your feedback/review of them, because as a proud S-500 owner I already "sold" a lot of my friends on G&L and I must say - literally nobody is disappointed.

Best regards and many thanks for everything you did and still doing,
Anton

[Scott Henderson]

Thanks for the info but I'm a Suhr guitars endorser for many years and I'm very satisfied with them. I'm a bit curious when you talk about the bridge of the G&L guitars - in my opinion the best sounding bridge is the traditional six screw bridge, which is still being made at Fender, and not much different at all from the bridges they made in the 50's. Suhr uses them on my guitars, and I've even tried clones of them made by Callaham and other companies - they don't sound as good as the Fender. How can G&L call their guitars vintage if they're not using the vintage bridge? It's a huge part of the traditional strat tone. Thanks again!

[Anton]

Scott, I am so sorry if I gave an impression like "you should definitely try them because they are better" - I absolutely didn't have that intention! One of my closest friends is Suhr Classic owner, and he raves about it Just wanted to know if you ever tried G&L and what's your opinion on them. And I really appreciate your time, thanks for replying!

Talking about vintage tone and non-vintage bridge - no idea, unfortunately. Just finished googling and made a quick sweep through G&L user's forum, but no luck with this kind of discussion. I guess he didn't want to make exact copy because it's too lame, but at the same time, classic model was required in a lineup, so he took his latest developments and incorporated them into time-proven guitar design. But yeah, I see your point - if you call something vintage, make sure it is a copy! But I guess it's fans like me who make this mistake, at least that what seems to me from http://www.glguitars.com/instruments/USA/guitars/legacy/index.asp. I'm looking forward to having really vintage G&L, but not now - money is always the issue.

I actually don't like the arm on G&L bridges, but I do love the stability of DF bridge itself! I'd never trade it for FR or any other locking system.
I'd be happy to hear from you about that if you ever happen to try guitars with that bridge yourself!

[Scott Henderson]

Actually I went on their website, and the bridges they put on their guitars are two-post bridges - pretty close to Fender's "American Standard" bridge, which Jeff Beck and many other players use. They sound good, but they don't sound vintage - more midrange and much less bass. I still prefer the 6-screw bridge, but it's a matter of personal taste.

I know a few guys who ordered Suhr guitars, and told me they were disappointed because their guitars don't sound like an old strat. I asked them what kind of bridge they ordered, and they told me, a Gotoh two post bridge. Well, there you go.