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Considering my handle is ZionStrat, it is a bit surprising that I have sold my Zion off to a good buddy who really needed it and I have first purchase option if it ever goes back on the market. I'm at downsizing age and I've replicated this tone in my own guitars, but I will sure miss it..
Photo https://drive.google.com/file/d/11nC...w?usp=drivesdk
I decided to write it up because Zions are not well known... but the quality and design is in the Shur or Anderson range.
It's swamp ash, maple neck with barden pickups and it covers the entire range of modern Strat to classic strat.. it was the first guitar I custom designed and here's the story..
In the mid 1990s I was regularly playing live with a 4 piece band that had a lot of moving parts.
The keyboardist led with lots of intricate patches, the bassist could hit the root and get a nice riff in before the next root and the drummer was a solid timekeeper who regularly mixed in polyrhythms. As a result, my 2 humbucker Krammer was simply too thick and it was regularly lost in the mix.
In late 1995, I decided I needed a custom guitar and I called Ken Hoover with Zion guitars. I had met Ken 10 years or so before when he was the only person I could find in the Greensboro NC area who could set up a Floyd Rose correctly.
Of course, he did a lot more than setups... he was the founder of Zion guitars and was known for building beautiful, extremely well-designed guitars before Suhr and Anderson were top brands.
I knew I needed a modern strat and I wanted a compound maple neck and swamp ash body with a standard tremolo. But I was also hoping to get classic strat sounds, it needed to be low noise and I had about $1250 to spend.
Considering that Ken regularly built one of a kinds, this was a relatively easy job. However, my price point was pretty low and he needed a couple of months to get all of the parts together.
The key to the 'dual sound' was the pickups- He used Joe Bardens, an articulate and thick take on a strat size, dual coil
pup. But he also included a spin a split to thin out the modern 'umph'.
As a result, it could cut with tons of punch, but it could also back off into classic Strat chimey tones.
So keep your eyes open, their standard designs are significantly different than my strat... however they're all incredibly well-built and wonderful price points for such well-built guitars..
Ken passed away a number of years ago and sold the operation and it is now based in Raleigh North Carolina.. I'm assuming that the value is still good, however they also bought Joe Bardon pickups.. so an incredible opportunity to mix and match!
So keep your eyes open on the used market and would love to hear your Zion stories!
Photo https://drive.google.com/file/d/11nC...w?usp=drivesdk
I decided to write it up because Zions are not well known... but the quality and design is in the Shur or Anderson range.
It's swamp ash, maple neck with barden pickups and it covers the entire range of modern Strat to classic strat.. it was the first guitar I custom designed and here's the story..
In the mid 1990s I was regularly playing live with a 4 piece band that had a lot of moving parts.
The keyboardist led with lots of intricate patches, the bassist could hit the root and get a nice riff in before the next root and the drummer was a solid timekeeper who regularly mixed in polyrhythms. As a result, my 2 humbucker Krammer was simply too thick and it was regularly lost in the mix.
In late 1995, I decided I needed a custom guitar and I called Ken Hoover with Zion guitars. I had met Ken 10 years or so before when he was the only person I could find in the Greensboro NC area who could set up a Floyd Rose correctly.
Of course, he did a lot more than setups... he was the founder of Zion guitars and was known for building beautiful, extremely well-designed guitars before Suhr and Anderson were top brands.
I knew I needed a modern strat and I wanted a compound maple neck and swamp ash body with a standard tremolo. But I was also hoping to get classic strat sounds, it needed to be low noise and I had about $1250 to spend.
Considering that Ken regularly built one of a kinds, this was a relatively easy job. However, my price point was pretty low and he needed a couple of months to get all of the parts together.
The key to the 'dual sound' was the pickups- He used Joe Bardens, an articulate and thick take on a strat size, dual coil
pup. But he also included a spin a split to thin out the modern 'umph'.
As a result, it could cut with tons of punch, but it could also back off into classic Strat chimey tones.
So keep your eyes open, their standard designs are significantly different than my strat... however they're all incredibly well-built and wonderful price points for such well-built guitars..
Ken passed away a number of years ago and sold the operation and it is now based in Raleigh North Carolina.. I'm assuming that the value is still good, however they also bought Joe Bardon pickups.. so an incredible opportunity to mix and match!
So keep your eyes open on the used market and would love to hear your Zion stories!
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