G&L Legacy HB

Made in the USA.
2007.
Alder body.
1 Volume and Passive Treble and Bass system.
2 G&L vintage Alnico single pick ups and 1 Seymour DUncan TB-4.
Maple Neck with Rosewood fret board.
22 frets.
Candy Apple Red finish which is very beautiful.
G&L Dual Fulcrum vibrato.
Sperzel standard (non-locking) tuners.
25.5 scale
It comes with a G&L case.

Play any kind of music but I bought this one for more Blues, Funk, and Pop style music.
Play with Boogie small combo (Subway Rocket), Vox AD-50, Line6 Vetta II combo.
It has a normal single coil pick up noise and it sounds very nice.
It has the Strat sounds and plus because of the bridge pick up, TB-4. It can be splitted. So this is a very versatile guitar on the market.
I put 009-042 strings. (came with 010-046)
The bridge is pretty simillar with Floyd Rose type bridge so I put them on my guitar. (I think 009 is better than 010 if you have a Floyd Rose bridge.)
In general, it sounds great.
I won??t say it is better than Fender but I would say it is a kind of Fender Strat well up-graded.

Pretty nice and it needed some ajustment.
I put 009-042 strings on it and very comfortable to play.

I will use mine without a backup for sure.

I think the G&L site is not very up-graded.
And never dealt with them directly.

If you need a Strat or Fat Strat, it is very worth to try this one.
Actually, I??ve had a very bad image of Fender, (the company,not a Strat model) and this led me to get this one.
My student hava a Legacy model and is also sounds great.
Very Strat tone with a modern feel.

Legacy HB my custom order. a beautiful natural Swamp Ash, 3-ply black pickguard and black knobs, beautiful bright Maple neck.
2 G&L vintage style Alnico V single coils and one seymour duncan TB-4 JB HUMBUCKER Pickup in bridge.
5 position pickup selector plus mini-toggle switch to split coil of bridge humbucker, PTB system.
G&L Dual Fulcrum vibrato

I hase chosen that guitar because it's versatility. I play mostly blues with that guitar, and in any position I got an extrimly sound. it sound very vintag, its remind me 60's, 70's fender. playing with the nobs (PTB system) give a lot of variety from Bright sound to dirty. distorion in the single coil is very warm and bluesy, and in the brig you can play from havy rok to smood blues.
The only weakness is that it not jazzy

I got it setup very well g&l made a very strict setup.

I don't see any problem

my diller in Israel is giving me the best support

I'm playing mor then 25 years and its the best sound I have got ever.
befor I bout it I compared it to fender, but there was nothing to comper with and fender was more expensive. in button line I dont need more. don't need to pay more.

I purchased this guitar in October of 2004. It was a custom order and I recieved it a month after the initial order was placed. Pretty good when you consider some places take that long just to get you parts! I wanted a blueburst finish on alder, rosewood fretboard, graphite nut, white pearloid pickguard with black knobs and pickups. It came with Schaller/G&L tuners. I did not order locking Schallers but ended up putting them on later... not because I really wanted them but because the standard tuners that come on the guitar have an open top (like on bass guitar tuners) instead of the standard hole to thread your strings through and there is no tuner made that will fit without modification to the guitar other than the Schaller locking keys. A small gripe but I would like to know why they put those open top tuners on there to begin with. It also came with a one-ply tremelo cover. One-ply looks cheap and belongs on a cheap guitar, not a thousand dollar one. It also has the VTB controls and a small switch to split the coils on the HB pickup. The tremelo on this guitar is absolutely the smoothest and best built I have ever used. I have had over 10 Strats and have used the older six screw type, the two pivot type and a Floyd Rose back in the dive bombing days. The only thing I had done was to have the arm shortened by about 3/8 inch because it is so high off the guitar. I also like to have my trems partially blocked so that they rest solid and can only go down.

I have been playing for 25 years and have used Strats exclusively with the exception of an SG many years ago. The best neck I have ever played on was the SG but sound wise it was a one trick pony. An HSS pickup combination in my opinion is the best. I loved the flatter radius of the Gibson neck but wanted the "Strat" sound AND a full sized humbucker as well. On this guitar I get both. I love the Seymour Duncan TB (a JB in wider spacing). It is so smooth. Alnico 5 magnets give the best tone. The pickup is NOT hot but does have a good output. With all the gain on most amps these days it is better to go with a pickup that lets the tone of your guitar come through and pull the distortion out of your amp. Besides this pickup is a perfect match for the single coils which give you the typical Strat type sounds. I use this guitar to play classic rock. Now here is where I had a problem that you can read about in Customer Support. When I took the guitar out of the case at the music store I was struck by two things. It felt heavier than ANY Strat I had owned and the grain seemed over wide for alder. I questioned this at the store and was assured it was alder. I took it home and plugged it in. It played GREAT but it sounded a little too bright and lacked some of that mid flavor that is typical of all my previous guitars. I loaded Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials into the single coil slots to bring back the mids and that helped alot. Skip ahead 8 months and on a visit to my guitar tech he confirmed what I thought all along. The body was not alder but swamp ash! Hence the brighter sound and heavier guitar. Bolt on guitars (especially with maple fretboards) are inherently bright by design and do not need ANY help in the high end department. Well to make a long story short (read customer service) I sent the guitar to G&L and got the body switched to alder and now the guitar is soundind amazing! I even put the G&L single coils back in. I can't stress enough the benefits to your sound of ALDER and a rosewood fretboard on a bolt on guitar.

Absolutely top notch in every category! A beautiful instrument. This is how guitars should be made. Fender wants to make money.... G&L wants to make guitars. These come with SOUL! The last Fender I had (An American Deluxe) was the worst guitar I ever owned. An unstable neck in less than perfect humidity conditions and the thinnest paint job I have ever seen. Fender should be sued for calling that guitar deluxe. The previous Strat came with a blotchy black paint job and when I FINALLY got ahold of a Fender rep his respnse was ..black is the hardest color to paint, it shows all the imperfections. Nice. Loose the brand name block and get a G&L, you won't regret it. Besides you can custom order it and get a great guitar for a third of a custom ordered Fender.

Outstanding well built guitar. This will outlast five Fenders.

This is where I would give them a 20! One individual who's name I must mention here... Robert Bacca. He is the guy that turned my situation around. He ALWAYS took my calls (at least 6) and spoke at length about what was going on with my guitar. I explained about the body wood and what I thought happened. Blueburst is a "premier" finish and comes standard on swamp ash. I am assuming that is where some wires got crossed in the manufacture of my guitar. Robert ordered a new body the first day I talked to him so as to expedite the whole process. G&L ought to give him a raise or at least buy him a beer! Thank you Robert. I am going to be buying an ASAT next!

Again I will say... LOOSE THE NAME BRAND MENTAL BLOCK. This is more a Fender than any guita Fender Corp. now makes. This is the next generation Fender.. This is Leo's best... Get one!

Mine is a '00 or '01 with blueburst top over flame maple with maple binding and a rosewood fingerboard (I sat online for six months waiting for this combination - killer!). Mine also has Sperzel locking tuners, which are aftermarket. The features on this guitar smoke the competition if you are into build quality and engineering. Compare the tremelo closely with a Fender strat, and the strat looks like cheap junk. The P/U combinations offer a lot of virsatility, with the Seymour Duncan HB a big reason that I chose this model. If you are deciding B/W this guitar and a super strat, to me it is no competition. G and L is the real deal. I am only giving a 9 b/c the Sperzel's weren't standard. Also, it may be a bit heavy for some people.

I play modern Praise and Worship music in a large praise band. This guitar is perfect for what I do. Great clean tones to crunch rythm, and lot of middle ground. I can get very good overdriven lead tones and crunch rythm out of the humbucker, and full clean sounds out of the neck pickup with good dynamic response. It gives me all the strat sounds I need, and a meatier humbucker sound than the Fender super strat. To me it sounds a little less nasal than Fender also. Do you want a guitar or a duck call? The only other sound I would like is a neck humbucker occasionally, but that's not the guitar's fault. Another poster complained about the P/Us not being hot, but they are plenty hot for anything up to classic rock. If you are looking for triple rectifier meltdown, you probably aren't reading this anyway.

Action was great. Fit and finish was excellent. I am fairly particular and I have nothing to find fault with whatsoever. The quality of materials and finish is wonderful. I know I sound like a commercial, but this guitar has just impressed the heck out of me. I feel like the quality would be custom shop level for most companies.

I take very good care of my instruments, but I have no question about the reliability of this guitar. The quality of this instrument would be very hard to beat.

Have only called with questions. Never had a problem.

I have been playing for about 14 years. I own 7 guitars total, but five are high end acoustics. My other electric is an Ibanez that I keep for backup, but it never gets played since the G and L arrived. If I bought another electric, it would be a 2HB in a lighter color with the gun oil neck just for variety. I could have bought Fender and got along fine, but I truly think this is so much better quality for the $$. The flame maple binding just puts it over the top - I meet people who see it on our TV broadcast and comment about it. You should get you one!

My guitar is actually a modded Legacy, and the previous owner put in a Duncan JB at the bridge and mini-59er at the neck, plus a graphite nut and sperzel locking tuners. I figure the proper review for this should be as a Legacy HB then... standard features on mine - blue-burst finish, rosewood fretboard, pearloid pickguard.

For feature, the Legacy HB is an easy 10: H/S/S layout with mini-toggle to split the humbucker? Tones galore!

I play classic rock with an edge, using a Mesa Nomad 55 head into a Genz Benz 55-212 G-glex cabinet. Sometimes I use a wah, otherwise no effects; (with a 3-channel amp, who needs effects!?)

Guitar is very quiet... for clean I use positions 1, 2, and 4 on the switch for a great deal of variety or "spank" to my tone. For dirty either position 5 or 1... the full-sized humbucker just yields fat, monster tones your average strat will never hack.

Only dislike is that it won't "quack" like your average strat... I knew that ahead of time, but still... I'll dock it a point there.

Beautiful guitar... the blue-burst was amazing; fretboard a rich, dark rosewood... no scratchy pots, switches are all great, frets are smooth and play fast, input jack is nice and tight... no gripes.

Built like a tank... I'm a somewhat "expressive" player... I jump around a lot, and at the end of the show we usually play an extended version of some rockin' song or another and I will put this thing through the paces... I play the Dual Fulcrum tremolo as viciously as somebody might play a Floyd, (e.g. hold onto it while doing a quick tap/hammer run to get a real warbly sounding effect on your high-speed trills... or plain old deep whammy dives)... I beat on the top of the guitar to "shake" out a chord rather than strum it... I'll even smash our drummer's cymbols witht he headstock occasionally... overall - yeah, this guitar is a TANK! Plays like a breeze and stands up to severe punishment.

I'd gig without a backup if pressed, but I also have an ASAT Classic along at every gig anyway.

n/a... "guitarsbyleo.com" is a great user forum with lotsa gurus who can answer any question. I did use their support to ask about a microphonic pickup in the ASAT Classic I have and they were responsive... (I ended up going with Dimarzios, but I've no complaints).

The perfect H/S/S guitar.

it's a strat, alder body, black with mint green pickguard, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, schaller tuners, non locking, bridge is paf G&L floating. it has SD JB4 hambucker on the bridge and two G&LMF single coils on middle and neck position. PTB control system- treble and bass controlled across all pickups, plus toggle switch to split JB4, five position switch.... it came with G&L case, not the sturdest one must admit and all the wrench keys etc...

(for the strat, this one have exactly all the features it needs, that is why i give it 10)

music I am playing is old school rock,n,roll, inclusive of blues from all sides of spectrum, but it does fit within the category anyway... at the moment I am playng trough AVT100 combo, but not for long- I am looking for THD flexy or ENGL souvereign, will see... dunlop wah and ts9, that is about it. anyway, last saturday we have played on big event alongside few other reputable bands from south africa (this is all happening in botswana) on proper PA nad trough JCM 900 half stack and despite all the lp customs and fender reissues, my sound was voted- amongst players- to be the best... I had everything rolled up on the amp, controlling the sound by volume knob- and I had everythin I wanted... whatever settings I have used, the guitar was allways cutting trough the mix nicely, having big sound, but not distorted, even with volume on 10- nice, rebellious overdrive, like guitar should sound... ace of spades with JB was earthquake...
it can get noisey here and there, but it greatly depends on cables and, strangely, on the electrical wiring of the room- in general, it does have some hum but nothing irritable- you can hear it only when not playing, so who cares...

this beauty is handmade in original fender factory and that is saying it all- virtualy everything is just perfect- this is ordinary strat, yes, but soo luxurious in feel- it is heavy and feels like something made for you alone... ahhhhhh....

nothing so far- in day to day use, two gigs per month, only problems I had were string breakages, but that has stopped with daddarios...
all the hardware is nice and solid steel, my only cloud are saddles on the bridge- I am bending a lot- and aforementioned strings problems have something to do with that- but, hey, this is your baby, you must get to know her to make her sing

would not know....

I am playing almost 20 years, not professionaly, but it makes no difference- tone and feel is what counts...however, the main reason for me to submitt the review was to actualy say this- I heve bought this one after trying it and I am considering no guitars anymore- I might get G&L ASAT some day, but not in near future... main thing is to love what you have and feel special about it- when you look at it, when you are playng it- I have one wife, one car, your guitar should be one and only as well- choose carefully and you will be rewarded big!

2003; swamp ash body with flamed maple top; solid birdseye maple neck; chrome speed knobs; locking Schaller tuners; honeyburst finish; Seymour Duncan TB-4 HB pickup with switch to make single coil, 2 G&L single coil pickups in neck and middle position; "#1" neck; white pearl pickguard; G&L Dual Fulcrum Vibrato bridge; case

The guitar sounds fuller and louder unplugged than my Strat. I play the guitar through a Boogie Road King, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and a Marshall MG15CDR. My styles vary beween hard rock lead, and clean jazz. Plugged in, the guitar is pretty noisey out of the single coil pickups and the single coil setting on the SD HB. Humbucking position and position 2 and 4 are not as bad. The SD pickup sounds OK. I'm not sure if I'll keep it in the long run. The G&L pickups sound good and vintage, but are barely tolarable because of the noise. They are also not very hot, output wise. I'm currently looking for replacements. The tone controls are excellent, much better versatility than on Fenders.

The action was adjusted quickly by my salesman. He did a decent job, so the action feels good. Not too low, not too high. Probably around 4mm. The guitar looks beautiful. They did and excellent job on the finish. There were only two small flaws on the whole guitar. One of them a small crack in the finish where the neck meets the body. The neck feels smooth. The guitar has a nice weight, and the curves fit my body nice.The knobs move smoothly. The tuners are excellent. The cable jack is much better than my Strat. The frets are medium jumbo. They feel good as well. The vibrato is far superior to a Fender's. The smoothest I've ever played. You can bend down and up, and it stays in tune. The whammy bar is also much better than most guitars.
Gripe: The pickguard had a plastic film covering it to protect it, but G&L screwed down all the switches, knobs, etc. over the film, making it very hard to remove all the plastic completely. Totally unnecessary!

It seems well made and solid. I'm sure it will last my life time. The case it came with is of very good quality.

When I ordered the guitar, I ordered the options of painted headstock, and graphite nut. My guitar arrived sooner than expected, (around 6 weeks) but without those options. I tried twice to email G&L to backup confirm my order just in case my salesman (The Guitar Hangar)didn't place the order properly, but the email was returned both times because of problems with there server. I didn't see a telephone number for direct support. When my guitar came not exactly the way I ordered it, all I got was an appology from the salesman. No discount, no direct word from G&L. My advice would be to pester the shit out of your saleman and get written confirmation on custom orders. On the other hand, their website is excellent, and they have a beautiful catalogue.

This is my 25th anniversary of playing present to myself. I would reccomend G&Ls. I might get an ASAT or one of their basses in the future.

2001 U.S.A. made Strat-style, with two G&L vintage single coils @ neck & mid, Seymor Duncan TB4 Humbucker @ bridge. Natural ash, ebony fretboard w/ jumbo frets, Sperzel locking tuners, graphite nut and tortoise shell pickguard. Beautiful piece of ash & ebony fretboard as black as night. You can't imagine how pissed I am, that I'll never get to play it. SEE "CUSTOMER SUPPORT".

From my hands, SILENCE. See "CUSTOMER SUPPORT"

In most aspects and in a word, Gorgeous. The Pickguard (3rd one sent) had, no kidding, a 1/4" gap around it. Great Q.A. But then, if Q.A. was right, they wouldn't have screwed up my order THREE TIMES! SEE "CUSTOMER SUPPORT"

I'll never know. See "CUSTOMER SUPPORT"

On April 7th, 2001 I ordered a Legacy HB (Seymor Duncan TB4 @ the bridge. I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived only 5 weeks later, on May 15th.
Unfortunately, this is where my joy in ownership came to a grinding halt.

I was there, when my salesman (correctly!) entered my order. And when the guitar was unpacked it was a beautiful piece of natural ash, with a great piece of ebony on the fingerboard.

The problem, is that it came with a black pickguard and Three Single Coil P/U's - not the humbucker @ bridge, as ordered.

After the dealer appoligized (and chewed ass @ G&L), I was assured that they'd (G&L) send a tortoise Pickguard with the correct pickups out right away. That was Monday, 5/14. G@L also said it should arrive Thursday, 5/17.

When it finally arrived on TUESDAY, 5/22 - The pickguard was my "as ordered" tortoise shell... WITH THREE SINGLE COIL PICKUPS AGAIN!

I just hope this isn't representative of G&L's brand of customer service. If it is, it's the kind I can do without.


This is to state, the CIRCLE JERK That Is G&L Customer "NON-SERVICE". These guys sooooooo suck, I can't believe it! The smear on Leo's name has him doing sommersaults in his grave (or urn?).

I finally got my Tortoise Shell Pickguard With the S.D. TB4 Pickup @ the bridge, on 5/29/01... MOUNTED ON A RIGHT HANDED PICKGUARD, FOR MY LEFTY GUITAR!!!

I chose G&L for two reasons:

First, because of their reputation for building a great guitar, in the tradition of Leo.

Second, is because I fell in love with a Fender American, in Natural Ash. Alas, it's unavailable in a lefty.

I thought I had found the answer in a G&L, with the TB4 as a useful bonus. Instead, I've been fed a bucket of S#%t, and I don't like the taste one bit.

I told the dealership today to let G&L know, that the guitar that I actually held in my hands, that only one month ago I so dearly wanted-they could shove right up their ass!

I may buy a G&L someday, however, it will be a used one. At least that way I'll know what I'm getting going in, instead of getting something "going in" an orifice that's made for things to only go out.

In the meantime, I'm sure the New 50th Anniversary Strat (#106 of 250, in lefty) I've located, will work just fine.

It sure sucks though, to get screwed into my second choice by the ineptness of a company in the business of selling THEIR OWN guitars.

need I Say more?

Overall Rating: A PLUS 10 worth of promise and potential and a SOLID NEGATIVE 10 WORTH OF SUPPORT AND FOLLOW-THROUGH. Doing the math, it averages out to ZERO, which is exactly what I got and exactly what G&L EARNED of my Business!