Non-guitarists, look away now... (21 replies)

I don't normally do this, but there's a few guitar players knocking about on SHA, and I've just acquired a reasonably unusual guitar which has really surprised and impressed me, so I thought I'd share it. My 'collection' is mainly Gibson, Fender and Gretsch, with a few others thrown in, but I'm a sucker for the P-90 sound, and particularly type of 3 pickup sound. Anyway, I happened upon something called a Peerless Wizard Custom the other day, and the looks and the pickup configuration appealed to me. I bid for it on the basis that it was fairly low money, and if I didn't like it, I'd move it on - which, tbh, I thought was likely.

I'm not unfamiliar with Peerless guitars (Korean), but they're under the radar in the UK to a certain extent, particularly as the fairly recent price hike took them into more serious financial territory. I've had a Peerless Monarch, and a few big Epi jazzboxes made by Peerless, so I knew they were OK, at least. Of course, they were putting out 30,000 guitars a month in the not too distant past, and manufacturing for Gretsch, Epiphone and Peavey among others. Since the other manufacturers have moved production to China and Indonesia due to lower wage costs, Peerless had to step up and manufacture under their own name, although they've been going since 1970. You may already know that, of course. :-)

Anyway, what a revelation this thing is. It's an outrageous gloss violin finish, with a nicely chunky neck, it's beautifully made and bound, and has what I think are probably Epi pickups, and there are three of them, as you'll see from the pic. The neck's comfortably chunky, although the body is thinline, like a 335, although even wider than a 335, so not for the very short of arms (although I am but I like the bigger bodied stuff). It's quite 'confused' in its approach, I have to say, because it's a thinline but with a floating bridge (mine's adjustable, but it's an upgrade). It has a very similar aspect to, say an ES-275, but the P-90's take it into ES-330 territory, although, as there are three, we're crossing into old ES-5 territory. I don't know if it wants to be blues, rock 'n' roll or jazz, but it does all of them very well, and gives a dark, T-Boneish yap and growl, particularly with a touch of overdrive.

I'm really knocked out with it, so I thought I'd share it with anyone interested. It's definitely yappier than my ES-330, and has more than a hint of T-Bone's ES-5 about it - one thing that I would say (and that goes for all the triple P-90's that I'm familiar with) is that it's IMO better suited for finger style than pick, unless you're careful, because it's easy to keep catching the middle pickup. Maybe, aesthetically, the headstock's a little small, but that's been finicky. String tension is just right, so it can be a bit bendy (with 10-46's on) but not sloppy. What a lovely piece of kit for not much money, and it would tempt me to have a look at some of their others - used though, not new! If I keep it for a long time, I might put a set of Bare Knuckle Blue Note P-90's in or a set of Seymour Duncan Antiquities.

Just done a little bit of poppy rock 'n' roll (Boy From New York City sort of thing) and it sounds so good as a 'normal' guitar too. Something I've noticed - and it's been the same with most guitars with this set-up) is that you do get some string harmonics from behind the bridge, because there's about 5 inches of string tension from the tailpiece to the bridge, but that's no big deal).

Just thought I'd share it, and recommend something new, affordable, a bit 'off the wall' and bloody good. Photo borrowed from guitarsnjazz.com (who are excellent)