George Dennis Unknown

This is just an update of my previous review.
Well the company answered my e-mail and said my guitar was made in 1991 from Canadian materials in Horovice, Czech Republic. It was made in the same factory that later build Epiphones, Deans and what not.
Cool that they responded. The coolest bit is that my guitar is one of only 120 made, so I'm pretty lucky - I got a limited edition item!

Yes, that's right - it's a GEORGE DENNIS GUITAR, not a GEORGE DENNIS GUITAR AMP. They were made in the early 1990's and soon discontinued - I think because they were simply overpriced. I remember print ads from the period showing photos of guitars with beautiful finishes and a wide choice of pickups, and the most expensive models featuring DiMarzio pups were priced at an approximate equivalent of today's 800 dollars. Pretty expensive here in their time...

But let's get back to the business. I don't know when exactly it was made but it must have been early 90's. I don't know where they were made either - some details suggest they were made here in the Czech Rep (control pot rout, original Schaller Floyd Rose-licensed tremolo, quality Kahler tuners) while others point to Asia (spliced-on headstock - at the time the guitars made around here used necks made of three pieces, and the hockey-stick headstock was built of additional layers glued to the neck side by side). The body is a down-sized Strat-style, made of 3 pieces of basswood I guess. HSS pickups (a noname brand), maple neck with a rosewood fretboard and non-pointed hockey-stick headstock, 24 frets, Schaller locking trem, Kahler tuners, one vol and one tone + a 5-way selector, bottle-green transparent lacquer. A pretty standard Super-Strat sort of deal.

The 5-way was broken and I wanted to install my choice of pickups so I just took the original pickups out. The guitar sounds rather dull - I have to crank the treble to get a reasonable tone. I think it's because the trem posts are in fact wood screws screwed directly to the body wood. I will replace them with ones that thread into metal inserts.

I put a SD Hot Rails in the neck, an unknown model Schaller single-coil in the middle, and a SD Custom Trembucker in the bridge positions. I added a push-pull tone pot to split both buckers and another push-pull on the volume to add the bridge pickup when the neck or neck+middle are selected.
It sounds good to me now. The HR is fat and round, if a tad muddy. The Schaller is nice although the poles are staggered and make for a lot of string pull even if the pup is adjusted all the way down. The Custom TB is cool - I had used it previously and my experience was all good. The neck+bridge combo with a Marshall-like tone is absolutely sweet. A very versatile guitar.

Now for the quibbles. The neck isn't in its best shape - literally. There is a slight bump in the middle of it on the treble side, but it does not hamper playability or tone. The trem knife edges are probably a bit dulled so the trem does not always return to the zero position in tune. I will improve this myself. Another problem is the trem posts - see above. Also the nice green lacquer tends to crack and peel off - happily in the trem spring cavity only (so far, that is). I wouldn't mind trying another body material, like ash, to see what it would do to the tone. While balanced, the tone is a tad too tame.

The guitar must have withstood lots of playing, and hopefully it will too as long as I keep it. The finish is bulletproof (where it's not cracked and peeling, that is), the trem is in good shape except for the edges, and the guitar is very lightweight, which is really nice. It was my main gigging guitar for a month or two and will be again once I set it up to my taste. I just love wanking with the wang bar. Or is that wanging then? ;-)

The company discontinued the guitar line years ago. I didn't try contacting them because of the guitar as I didn't need to - it works, and the warranty must be void by now, especially since I replaced the pups.
I may try to email them to find out more about the year and place of origin.
However, I contacted the company for other stuff and they didn't always deliver their best: they're the official Fender dealer for my country, and I wanted some replacement parts, which they never supplied although they appeared to be very serious when taking my orders. I just got tired of calling them again and again, asking 'have my Fender-Floyd trem intonation screws/my vintage Tele bridge arrived yet?'
To be fair, though, I once had an amp they make (the Mighty Mouse, a 30W all-tube combo), and though its tone was not my cup of tea the amp was actually top notch quality and its Fender-ish clean tone was SWEEEET.

I wanted a roadworthy Floyd Rose-equipped guitar with a HSS pickup configuration, and I guess that's what I got with this guitar. It sounds and plays great with the pup upgrade, and I believe it will be even better after I make some more upgrades and really set it up right. If stolen, I'd search for a low-price replacement. These guitars may be pretty rare so I don't think I would find another one. And besides, there are so many other guitars to try.

I play through a Laney LC15 all-tube combo (single channel, 10" speaker, nice and portable). Sometimes I use a bunch of effects including a Guyatone VT-2 Vintage tremolo and WR-2 Wah Rocker, Danelectro PH-6 Pepperoni Phaser, Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive, Marshall Jackhammer, Zoom Ultra Fuzz UF-1, a Dano mini delay. Recently though I've been playing without any effects, straight to the amp, and it's inspiring.