Electrical Guitar Company Custom 500

EGC's are aluminum neck guitars based on, and inspired by the now very sought after Travis Bean aluminum necks in the 70's. Unlike the original Travis Bean's, the fretboard is not topped and it shines like a mirror. The body shape of this model is directly based on the Bean tb500. It is a neck and bridge single coil (passive) that have a look comparable to p-90's. Vol, tone, 3-way p/u selector. The aluminum piece includes the neck and head and is built through the body to the bridge, leaving the strings to ring out only through the aluminum, not the wood. The wood body is alder (beautiful grain, deep brown color). Black pickguard. Schaller bridge I believe. Grover tuners. Very nice, solid hardware. Made and finished 8/1/07, #154 (etched into neck base). The neck and body are very thin. It is the thinnest neck I have ever seen or played. No neck radius. A very malleable and bendable hard-case included.

This is sonically the most interesting guitar I have ever played. The overtones created by the aluminum neck are fairly unpredictable, which I have enjoyed. It seems that I'm always getting new sounds out of this guitar and I find that exciting. The pickup tone is highly similar to the sound of a Fender Telecaster. The bridge is certainly very twangy. The neck pickup can get very lush bluesy tones. Combined, the treble is almost more accentuated and sharp than the bridge alone but with a deeper low end. The tone overall I have found very satisfying and certainly versatile enough to create stylistic variety, but it is of course the aluminum neck that makes this guitar a creature of utmost singularity. The sustain holds as long as any Les Paul I've played, and the overtones create an almost chorus-like sheen that seems more noticeable in a variety of situations. Open chords especially, a harder, digging-in strum, and higher volumes really bring out the unique ring (playing with a Mesa F-50 head with Mesa 4x10). The louder I've played the more this guitar really releases a strange "spirit" from the aluminum, which gives a very sharp, cutting treble (which my bass player even complained about too sharp). Weird things start happening with the sound in the room. A beautiful "ghost." Truly fascinating. I feel excited to play to see what it's going to do next.

The action is very nice, smooth and relatively fast playing. Oils from your fingers do tend to stop movement against the metal if your hands aren't dry enough. Very very thin neck. Could take a tiny adjustment for some players. It makes other guitars feel like holding a baseball bat. Not for some, but it feels great to me. The finish and look of this guitar is quite beautiful. The metal neck is polished to a mirror. The natural wood finish (alder) has a very pretty, deep-saturated brown color with a beautiful grain. The whole setup was perfect really except for the input jack which had to be rotated slightly which was nothing. The only thing about aluminum necks is that they do tend to be buzzy, which has caused me to have to raise the string level at the bridge quite a bit causing a bit of an angle with the strings. In the end though it's perfectly satisfying.

Built like a tank. Very tight, professional and detailed craftsmanship. Every thing about it is solid, the most solid guitar I've ever spent any time with. The tuners are tight and stay in tune very well. The hardware is top of line and of course the aluminum alloy used for the neck would be very difficult to really mess up. Being a tank it is certainly a bit heavier than most guitars, even for how incredibly thin the profile is. Comparable to a Les Paul's weight. I take care good care of my instruments but if even if you were thrashing punk rocker kickin' this thing around every night gigging I would be suprised if you could do much to it.

Now this I usually wouldn't care about but since contact with the builder has been so great there couldn't be anything less than a 10 score. Kevin Burkett, the man behind EGC and it's guitars' builder, has been absolutely fantastic about getting back to emails (MySpace) explaining and discussing every detail of his work. Outstanding. I believe he said the neck or anything having to do with the aluminum part of it is guaranteed and to just give him a call with any problems. Great guy.

I've played for 14 years now and many guitars have come and gone and this one ain't going nowhere. It's fascinating, unique, and it could catch the eye of anyone who even slightly cares about guitars in a heartbeat. Kevin builds everything custom to your specifications, but with all the possibilities with that I wouldn't change a thing from what I ordered. An outstanding instrument all around.