G&L Legacy

1994 model. USA made, strat style. Alder body, 22 fret maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, medium frets. This guitar came with 3 Duncan Vintage single coils. G&L vibrato tailpiece, "Emerald Blue" finish, which is actually a metalflake green with blue undercoat, which seems to morph into vivid blue under stage lighting. One master volume control, one bass tone, one treble, which effect all three pickups. I particularly like the beefy vibrato arm setup, a G&L standard, much more heavy duty than it's Fender counterpart. I've installed a white pearloid pickguard. In my opinion, this guitar should have come with locking tuners, so I give it a 9 for features instead of 10.

I play all styles except Classical on this instrument. Currently in band playing predominately Classic Rock, with a bit of Blues and C&W thrown in. Played through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10, with chorus, delay, wah, & phaser pedals. After about two years, I went to three EMG S pickups, with midrange, and treble/bass boost controls in place of standard tone knobs, a la David Gilmour. The stock Duncans got a great sparkle, and good vintage 50's strat tones, but were lacking in output for the overdriven hard rock and blues tones, hence the pickup change. Plus, I wanted to lose the hum, which annoys me to no end. With my current pickup configuration, this guitar is extremely versatile tonally. I can get everything from Buddy Holly thin to SRV crunch, to balls-to-the-wall metal. Even a passable Carlos Santana tone. The EMG's are a bit flat, lacking the richness and depth of premium passive single coils, but I made the decision to sacrifice that for versatility. Ordinarily, I gig with a minimum of two guitars, but I can, and have, played entire nights with only the Legacy.

The factory setup was very good, but right after I bought it, I had it set up for heavier strings - 10-52's. This beefed up the sound considerably. As anyone who's seen a new G&L can tell you, their finish work is one of the company's strongest virtues. The finish on my Legacy is absolutely stunning, and always elicits positive comments. I did not encounter any workmanship flaws in this guitar.

Have gigged with this guitar since I bought it 4 years ago, and have never had a problem. It still looks, sounds, and feels terrific. Some of the chrome hardware on the tailpiece has faded, but I attribute that to the normal wear and tear of gigging.

10 year warranty, but I'm confident that G&L would go out of their way to remedy any problems regardless of time frame, for the original owner. I have owned another Legacy, which did have some wiring connections come loose about a year after purchase. That problem was remedied immediately, with no fuss, and absolute support from G&L. They were a joy to deal with.

Two months after purchasing this guitar, I liked it so much I bought another one, a gorgeous gold metalflake with maple fingerboard, which now belongs to our other guitar player. I also own a G&L ASAT Classic, which I'm hopelessly in love with, but that's another story! Like all G&L's, the Legacy is an extraordinary value; you just can't go wrong with something from these guys; their price to value ratio is extremely high.

This is a recent model Legacy (96) US made, Strat style guitar. It has a 25 1/2" scale, rosewood fretboard, birdseye, 12" radius maple neck. 3 single coil (Seymore Duncan SSL-1 pickups) and a 5 way selector switch. 2 tones (treble and bass which works on all the pickups) and a volume control. Body is Alder with a 3 colour sunburst finish. The bridge is a G&L tremolo. Hard shell case is included as are all the tools needed to service this guitar.

I play Classic Rock and Blues through a SF (71)Deluxe Reverb and a SF (68)Bassman head with 2x12 bottom. This guitar makes good tone through the neck and the middle pickups but the bridge pickup is too bright, for my tastes. This guitar sounds best through the Bassman (probably cause I play it louder), with the Deluxe Reverb, though, the tone is good, but..... I've recently replaced the bridge pickup with a Seymore Duncan Vintage Rails, I've yet to try it through the Bassman, but with the Deluxe Reverb it made a big difference, much more punch than the stock bridge pickup. Now don't get me wrong, this guitar has tons of tone, it's just that the bridge pickup was a bit lacking. If you want that strat quack in the 2 and 4 selector positions, this guitar has it. With the Vintage Rails in the bridge you get an excellant lead tone. The newer Legacy's have G&L pickups, so maybe they sound different than what I'm describing. Best to try one out for yourself.

Now this is where this baby shines, this guitar is almost perfect, from the feel of the neck through to the finish. The setup that G&L recommends is perfect for me, right action, right pickup height. The sunburst finish is beautifull, so much so that I named it after my late Dad (sunny). Everything works and feels great on this guitar, the pots and selector have a solid, good quality feel to them. The bridge and saddles are of the highest quality. The frets feel great sliding under your finger tips. The balance is perfect, you really have to feel it for yourself. The only thing that I dislike about the appearance is the pickguard, it's a white single ply, ordinairy looking thing. Seems to me that they could have used the 3 ply w/b/w/ pickguards like the one on my Strat.

I'm not a gigging musician so I can't tell you how dependable this guitar would be, BUT by the look and feel I could almost say that you could gig with this baby and not have to worry about bringing a spare. This guitar is so solid that if Stevie Ray were still alive he could bang this sucker on the floor to his hearts content and still finish his set with it.

I've had it for a year now and I haven't had any problems that I could be able to offer a comment.

This is Leo Fenders Legacy, this is the last of his contributions to us. What more could I say. Leo has been dead since 91 and this guitar is a 96 and it still has the magic that he imparted on us, so I guess G&L have been able to uphold the quality that the name Leo Fender is noted for. Yes, I would buy another Legacy if it were stolen (but only after I tried to hunt down the M/F that stole it).

Hand made in Fullerton California some time in late '96 was this beast. 22 medium/jumbo frets, rosewood board, maple neck, 2 piece ash body finished in Honeyburst.
3 G&L hand-wound vintage-style single coil pickups with alnico magnets, 5-way switch (2&4 are hum-cancelling), one vol, 2 tone (treble & bass cut).
The neck is a satin non-finished type finish. That is to say, it feels very must like bare wood but isn't. Neck construction on G&L guitars is novel. They cust the neck blank lengthways off-centre (about 60-40), rout out the larger part, insert the truss rod, and glue them back together. It's supposed to "allow the wood to release any inherent tensions which might otherwise have lead to warping". I dunno about that, but it's avery neat way of fitting in the truss rod.
The body style is that of a Strat, but with more rounded edges, and slightly thinner horns.
The vibrato system is G&L's own design. Based on two heavy duty pivots and knife edges, the tension's balanced by two springs (with an extra being supplied), and the milled arm is push-fit and has a tension adjustment allen nut. Machine heads are G&L badged slot-post type non-locking affairs. More about these later...
The neck profile is very slim. When I play my 57 RI Strat after playing the G&L it feels like the Strat neck is getting in the way of my hand.

I play mainly blues these days. Through a TS-5 and Blues Deluxe this guitar sings. Tonally it is a lot darker and more focussed than my 57 RI Strat, and more variations are available as a result of the Treble & Bass cut tone controls affecting all three pickups.

Perfect. Not a flaw. Neck pocket extremely tight, two piece body so well joined that you have to look for the join by examining reflections in the mirror-like finish!

Solid as a rock. But gig without a backup! Aeyaah! I'm the guy who was once on his third & final guitar by the beginning of the third song of a set!

10 year limited warranty. Not had to use it, hopefully never will. According to the guys on the G&L tribute page (http://www.guitarsbyleo.com) G&L are extremely approachable and helpful.

I've been playing 25 years, I've got seven other electric guitars from Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, and Kimbara (who?). What I love about this guitar is it's neck, and the sound, oh, and the whammy bar, and the tone controls...
What I don't like are the machine heads. They are perfectly stable under normal use, but when it comes to re-string time I have a hell of a job to get the top E & B strings to grip on the string posts. Stay in tune? I can't even get them to stay in place! Apprantly this is a common problem. The edges are too rounded, and the posts are too shiney. However, I've been told a good trick which involves a couple of counder-winds 'round the post first before you try to tune 'er up. So hopefully I should be OK next time...
Because of this it gets an 8, not a 10, and maybe a set of locking machine heads some time!

Leo's last word on the Strat! Drop-shipped from G&L to my door last December: Extremely resonant, light ash body with a honeyburst finish, pearloid pickguard and maple neck/fingerboard, graphite nut, non-locking tuners, handwound G&L pick-ups. Incredible finish work, great set-up --man, this baby was ready to go right out of the case! It sounded so good accoustically, that I played it for two hours before plugging it in! In the words of Austin Powers --"YEAH, baby!!"

I have played seriously for over twenty years, mostly instrumental fusion/rock/jazz stuff (from Dregs/Morse to Hellecasters, Jeff Beck, etc.) and I use a fair amount of effects - comp/od/univibe/wah/ chorus/delay. This guitar is very versatile, soundwise, and the p/u's are fairly vintage-sounding. I can get anything from chicken-pickin' on up. Unlike a regular strat, this guitar features passive treble and bass tone knobs for all p/u's, which allows a broader spectrum of tone than I had expected. Very useful feature, IMHO.

The set-up was perfect for me, nothing further required. There were no flaws in the finish, everything from the neck pocket on up to the finish on the frets was custom-shopworthy! The ash body is nicely grained, and the finish is just gorgeous. I showed it to a friend who has a '61 Strat (among other vintage instruments) and he was also floored by the quality in this guitar.

No doubt this guitar is roadworthy! Gig without a back-up? And tempt the fates? Never!

I haven't dealt with G&L (haven't needed to!), but from what I hear, they are very approachable and helpful, unlike some other American manufacturer of similiar guitars that will remain nameless!;)
I custom ordered this instrument through Indoor Storm, out of Raleigh, NC, and would recommend them for both price and service! Very personalized, outstanding customer service. No doubt in my mind, Doug, Eddie and Max are the best!

I would definitely buy another G&L...in fact, I'm already buttering up my wife for an ASAT Special for my birthday! I wish I could think of something negative to say about this guitar, but sheesh....okay, how about this....instead of a molded hardshell case, a guitar this beautiful oughta come in a tweed case!

This guitar is a 97 model G&L Legacy. Built in the USA. It is a solid body electric with strat body styling. Three G&L single coil pickups are switched via 5-way with conventional settings. One control for volume while seperate bass and treble controls handle the tone. Both tone controls are functional with all pickup combinations. Maple neck with rosewood fretboard, Schaller non-locking tuners. Ash body with transparent red finish, white 3-ply pearloid pickguard. G&L hardtail bridge. G&L hardcase included

I play mostly classic rock and starting to lean towards blues. I'm using an Ampeg re-issue Superjet and get real big, make that really, really big, bass out of this rig. What's amazing is that while the bass is so powerful, the treble is nice and clean too. There is some noise with the pickups, but less compared to a Fender American Standard. I haven't opened the body cavity to see if there's any shielding in it.

This guitar was special ordered and was delivered with a solid set-up. Pickup adjustments were okay. I have adjusted them to my liking since then, but not by much. The body is a 3-piece joined item and the seams are very well matched. To find the seams you have to look on the sides of the guitar and see the difference in endgrain. The seams look natural when viewed from the front or back. Body wood was ordered as "Swamp Ash", but the guitar I have is pretty heavy, which makes me tend to believe it is "Northern White Ash". Nonetheless it is nice looking and I believe it helps the sustain in conjunction with the hardtail bridge. The fretwork was excellent. No rough edges to be found, all highly polished. The output jack locknut was tight when I first got it, but worked loose after about a month. I retightened it and haven't had the problem since. This is a beautiful guitar. There are no sanding or buffing marks to be found. When it's clean, the finish looks to be several inches deep.

I don't play in a band and thus can't say how it'll stand up to constant gigging. The guitar is heavy and solid. The neck pocket is tight and I've tried tugging on it, but it doesn't move. Judging by the feel of it, my guess is that it should hold up well to abuse. When I hold the neck with two hands like a baseball bat, I get the feeling I could go a pretty good ways in a guitar smashing contest.

The warranty is the standard G&L 10 year limited warranty. I have made no contact with the company for these services

I've been playing on and off the last 23 years. Past guitars have included Epiphone, Fender, Gibson, and Yamaha. I did plenty comparing of this guitar with the Fender American Standard and Strat Plus model Strats. Lower price, higher quality control, and choice of body colors and features gave G&L the nod. Standard delivered string guage was a set of .009s. I changed to .010s since I tend to bend the lighter strings out of tune. I had to file th enut a little to accomodate the larger strings, but that was the only adjustment needed. I'd buy another one, but maybe in a different color.

22 frets, maple neck w/ rosewood fretboard, ash body, three "vintage" single coil pickups, nice floating tremolo unit (can bend notes up and down) w/ great machined tremolo bar, quality tuners, medium-jumbo frets, made in USA, 1 volume knob, 1 treble cut knob, 1 bass cut knob, 5 way pickup selector (positions 2 and 4 are hum-canceling)

great sound very balanced good for rock, alternative, pop, and blues (and probably lots of other stuff) can make whatever sounds you want responds well to all amps and effects

great action, all around quality craftsmanship, no problems whatsoever

great for live playing - a very comfortable guitar very nice strap buttons quality components all around

never dealt with them

I've been playing for a while now and have played quite a few guitars this is BY FAR my favorite great sound, great craftsmanship, great versatility the only thing I wish it has was locking tuners and slightly better pickups, which is why I'm going to trade it in for the slightly pricier G&L S-500 which I would recommend over this one if you can afford it, otherwise, this is the BEST Stratocaster type guitar I have EVER played