Feline Guitars Custom RG

Late 2004, hand made in the UK.
The great features about this guitar is; i had all my dream features Plus experimental features which i didn?t even think of until i actually started talking about having my working mans axe built.
Gunstock grey/silver finish, matching headstock, alder body, 3 piece Birdseye maple neck, ebony fret board, original design layout dot pearl inlays, original Floyd rose floating/locking bridge, SD hot rails in the bridge - SD cool rails in the neck - bare knuckle pickup 'mothers milk' single coil in the middle, scallops from fret 15 to 24, Gibson jumbo gauge fret wire from 1-16, medium gauge fret wire from 17-24.
Basically it all started off when i decided i needed a strat for session recording, but in my years of experience with strats i have never got on with them due to the neck joint, scale length, neck profile, fret board radius, useless tremolo, the list could go on forever. So i went to Jonathan from feline guitars who had done a few odd jobs for me here and there (coil tap and pickup change on my Gibson les Paul, etc) and asked him about building me a strat. We got talking about what i want in a guitar and my needs in terms of playability and tone and versatility. The deeper and deeper i got into my demanding specs i realised a strat is something i will never ever enjoy playing, so i scrapped the idea of a strat in my head and went all out and ended up with you could call a super-duper-strat!!! Jonathan prompted me to try out many of the guitars he had in his workshop to get a good feel for necks and body shapes and neck joints etc. after playing one of his super-strats with scallops i realised THAT IS WHAT I WANT!! (That very week i scalloped the same amount of frets on my les Paul.. i cant believe i went without scallops for this long!!!!). i have always had trouble flicking my pickup selector at great speeds (for yngwie type speed pickup selections) so i had it positioned perfectly so i dont knock into it, but i can flick it back and forth (5-way) with absolute ease. The volume pot is positioned close to the bridge pickup for nice volume swells but nowhere near as annoyingly close as a strat. I went with an EBMM headstock for the more compact look. The neck is a beautifully smooth satin finished, Gibson 60s profile styled, so its not flat as a board but also not totally round. It?s nice and slim and fits like a glove. Now when using a guitar with a short scale length such as this, we talked over how it might be rather cramped up at the 20-24 fret region, so he had the idea to use different fret wire up there... and my GOD what a difference it makes!!! I cannot believe other guitar builders have not incorporated this before.

This guitar can go from pure 'quack' funky, to warm jazz, to purring blues, to twangy country and western (not that i play a lot of that.. but its there if i ever need it!), to all sorts of classic rock... and of course total and completely brutal METAL!!! It will seriously allow you to do anything on it.. The damn thing plays itself anyway! i am running this through my practise rig of a small combo amp and a line 6 POD-XT and also (obviously) my live rig which is a Mesa boogie single rectifier head, recto 4x12 oversized cab, rocktron replifex FX processor, senheisser G2 EW172 wireless system, korg DTR1000 tuner and all of which is controlled by a ground control pro midi foot controller. I have had several compliments of how amazingly fat it sounds compared to my les paul through BOTH rigs, when you play a chord even on super high gain settings, all the notes ring out clearly and sustain forever

the guitar is custom - you can have it set-up however you like! Currently its set-up in drop C for my band (no we are not nu-metal or metal-core, some chords are impossible to play *literally* without being dropped, also drop C just makes everything sound that extra bit HEAVY) with EB 10-52. I am thinking of putting some 11-56's on there though one day, as it plays so much like butter - i cant play anything else these days! the finish is absolutely beautiful and exceeded my expectations

It will defiantly withstand live playing as long as it has some fresh strings on before every gig, i tend to be a bit harsh with my picking and break the low strings after about 3/4 weeks on all my axe's. As with any guitar with a Floyd... when gigging you MUST have a backup, so i am planning on buying another one of these customs (exactly the same spec apart from a different colour and maybe some more exotic woods this time). But until then i will just have to use my LP as a backup. The clear coat finish is rock solid, it wont be dinging any time soon. The locking strap buttons on it are top of the range and allow me to freely swing this axe around my head without worrying about it falling off ;)

Fortunately for me the builder lives across the road from where i rehearse every week and just literally a 20-minute bus ride away from my house - and he didn?t mine me popping in every now and again just to see how things were going. I even had a chance to play it before it had been sent to the painters! When it was still 'raw'. Jonathan is always ready to talk and is patient with people even if they dont know exactly what the might want and at the same time, understands people with a passion when they know Exactly what they want.

When finalizing the deal i compared what i had ordered to an Ibanez JEMvwh7, which retails at about #1899. I thought to myself, why on earth would someone pay that amount of money for a guitar built to someone else?s specification when they can order a totally CUSTOM hand made guitar built entirely to their specification for LESS MONEY!!!!!! I had gone through about 10 different guitars before i realised it was a custom job what was needed in my life. Nothing Ibanez, BC Rich, ESP, Gibson, Fender or Jackson had to offer me can compare to how this guitar suits me so perfectly, there is nothing much else to say other than this guitar is a part of me now!