The Ibanez SR Mezzo offers a combination of jazz and precision style pickups, a widely used configuration, covering loads of sonic possibilities. The pickups used are passive Ibanez Dynamix models. Their tone is enhanced by the built in two-band active tone circuit, powered by one standard 9-volt battery, accessed through a standard battery box on the instrument rear.
Short Scale
The Fender Mustang appeared in late summer 1964 as an improved version of the Duo-Sonic, meaning that it had the Fender Dynamic Vibrato added. It came in three colours, for the US Flag – Red, White and Blue. As time went on, more colours became available. Though it was intended as a ‘Student’ level guitar, it found favour with a number of hot players, including the late great Johnny Winter, Adrian Belew, David Byrne and Kurt Cobain.
Here is a rarity, an Airline Pocket Bass by Valco, Black dating to 1964, a short scale bass regarded by some as one of the best recording basses ever made. The Airline Pocket Bass was built from 1962 to 1968 at the Valco shops in Chicago, Illinois, along with other Valco brands including National and Supro. Valco also branded their instruments for other companies, many of which were distributors or catalog retailers like Montgomery-Ward and Sears Roebuck. Valco amplifier production followed the same pattern but their customers included established builders like Harmony, Gretsch and Kay.
This instrument has sold
MORE →Here is a brand spankin’ new Collings OM2H ESS – an Orchestra Model with Engelmann Spruce top, 24.875 inch Short Scale guitar. Based on the classic Orchestra Model design developed at the end of the 1920s and in the Martin catalog for 1930, the Collings OM2H ESS is pretty much as good as it gets. Collings quality is consistently very high, from wood selection to nitrocellulose lacquer finish, setup and everything in between. These are some of the finest instruments available anywhere.
Here is a treat – a Tony Duggan Smith Mystic, a short scale (21.89 inch, 556mm) cutaway archtop built during 1995 at Duggan-Smith’s Toronto shop. Tony Duggan-Smith has been around the Canadian arts music and film scene for decades. He was a member of the Pukka Orchestra and Neotone after apprenticing with Jean Larrivee and leading the repair department at Ring Music, then run by Bill Wagner and Michael McLuhan (yes that McLuhan.), and has also over a decade of work in the film industry. One of his current projects is the Apprehension Engine, an instrument specifically designed for use in horror films.
This instrument has sold
MORE →In North America, guitars like the Australian-built Maton MS500 Mastersound are fairly rare, though they are common in their home countries. This is often due to three factors, none of which reflect quality – distance (shipping costs), import duties and distribution chains. Here we’re treated to a Maton MS500 solidbody electric, built during 2001 at the Maton shop in Box Hill, Victoria, Australia – near Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay. Like other Maton products we’ve seen, it is well thought out, very well built and finished, and incorporates indigenous wood species wherever possible.