Archer_of_Fish
New member
Finally, it is here.....the torture is over. Was it worth the wait? YES
What a great guitar. It came with a typical Gibson monkey quality setup but I intended to change it to FZ spec anyway so that is no big deal. I got the guitar home, did a quick fret polish to get them smooth and loaded up a set of Ernie Ball 8-38 strings, went about stretching them out and doing the intonation as I put on my best FZ impression. The neck is quite thin but comfortable, the frets are an odd shape, big but rather low. I was able to get the action to about 1 mm without a lot of buzzing. I then took the action to 1.5 mm on the treble side and about 1.75 mm on the bass side. It is very smooth playing and resonant even with a set of 8's.
The electronics are a blast and give more tones than I have ever had in a guitar. You have a 3 way selector, a phase switch (that takes the bass pickup out of phase and a master coil split switch. This gives you a lot of tones. An interesting feature is that in the coil split position the phase switch toggles between coils on the bass pickup. The pickups are a modded 57 classic, they are wound a little hotter and have alnico 5 magnets and they are fantastic. Very touch sensitive, exceptionally articulate and much clearer than any 57 classic I have ever tried. I suspect the pickups are a pair of 57 Classic + models with A5 magnets.
The vibrola is what it is....good for shimmer but of you get stupid and dive bomb you are going to go out of tune.
Most of all...it is beautiful
The Zappa Family has only authorized 400 of these. If you can get one do so
What a great guitar. It came with a typical Gibson monkey quality setup but I intended to change it to FZ spec anyway so that is no big deal. I got the guitar home, did a quick fret polish to get them smooth and loaded up a set of Ernie Ball 8-38 strings, went about stretching them out and doing the intonation as I put on my best FZ impression. The neck is quite thin but comfortable, the frets are an odd shape, big but rather low. I was able to get the action to about 1 mm without a lot of buzzing. I then took the action to 1.5 mm on the treble side and about 1.75 mm on the bass side. It is very smooth playing and resonant even with a set of 8's.
The electronics are a blast and give more tones than I have ever had in a guitar. You have a 3 way selector, a phase switch (that takes the bass pickup out of phase and a master coil split switch. This gives you a lot of tones. An interesting feature is that in the coil split position the phase switch toggles between coils on the bass pickup. The pickups are a modded 57 classic, they are wound a little hotter and have alnico 5 magnets and they are fantastic. Very touch sensitive, exceptionally articulate and much clearer than any 57 classic I have ever tried. I suspect the pickups are a pair of 57 Classic + models with A5 magnets.
The vibrola is what it is....good for shimmer but of you get stupid and dive bomb you are going to go out of tune.
Most of all...it is beautiful
The Zappa Family has only authorized 400 of these. If you can get one do so
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