Italia Mondial

Just a quick update on my previous review...

By using both pick/up outputs into either a twin input amp, or a four track portastudio with a line out to the amp, or even a two-jacks-into-one converter you can get a fair simulation of the 'Rick-O-Sound' stereo output of early '60s Rickenbackers. This does actually take quite a lot of fiddling about with balancing volumes on the EQ and vol/tone pickup controls, as per the already mentioned 'why is the acoustic sound so loud and the electric sound so quiet on this guitar' thing. Even better, you can put the piezo through the 'clean' channel and the electric through an effects box giving you instant Teenage Fanclub 'acoustic and electric rhythm guitar at once' without overdubbing... maybe if I put the acoustic on chorus and the electric through the echo box I can create a small Dave Edmunds type 'wall of sound' symphony of guitars...

As a result, my rating of the sound of this guitar, based on its variety, has gone a notch higher

This is made 2000 or 2001 Don't know where - Italia suggests one thing, but I believe they're designed by British "Fret King" custom guitar specialist Trev Wilkinson. I also believe they're discontinuing them in the UK to launch new models, though I've also seen it listed as a 'hot new product coming this year' in a US magazine, so who knows?
22 frets, rosewood neck with both square mother-of-pearl-effect fret markers and what looks like the real thing dots. Pickups are 2 x alnico humbuckers covered in chrome plus piezo in the wooden bridge - separate jack outlets for each configuation. Tuners are Gotoh, 3 a side, with big mother-of-celluloid tuner knobs. Body style is really like nothing else - hollow body, kind of jaguar-ish shaped, shiny black 'acoustiglas' (plastic) front and back with wood neck, f-hole, with cream contrast scratchplate with p/us moulded in to it, double cutaway, contoured. Single selector switch for bridge/neck humbuckers, vol/tone covers both; the piezo has a bass & treble that look like pots but eel like EQs, a second volume covers the guitar in either mode. This takes some time to work out, by the way. Neck seems more acoustic width than Fender narrow, frets I don't know alot about - it plays without buzzing right to the top is all I care.

This works beautifully on acoustic setting - bright and rich - for country/Byrdsy jangle/style; on the shop's Marshall the humbuckers sounded sweet rather than dirty - at home on a Boss practice amp there's some background hum on the humbuckers and the sound is noticeably quieter than the piezo - if you crank up the amp on both pickups you can get a nice Casino-type sound for Beatles tunes or a mellow chord sound. I was kind of hoping for maybe a little more bite and Gibson-type sustain with the sweetness for those odd moments in rehearsals when you play blues riffs while people try to decide which song to do next, in between real songs. The sound suits me because the Byrds, the Beatles, Love, Buffalo Springfield, Kinks, Big Star, Miracles, Temptations, Flamin' Groovies, The Church - generally, anything where the guitar needs to sound melodic - is the basis of the sound I'm going for when I write songs. I reckon if (a) I ever played guitar solos and (b) they had to cut I'd need a stompbox of some kind.

I don't know if it's possible to run both pick-up configs into one amp using two leads. Having to switch sockets and boost the amp volume settings when you're going from using the 'acoustic' to the 'semi-acoustic' sound could get fussy on stage. No feedback though, which is a bonus.

I'm giving a 10 for the acoustic sound and a 7 for the humbucker sound, rounding down to 8 until I've worked out how to boost the electric volume in a less labour-intensive way.

pick up selector sounds a bit dusty/noisy
everything else seems fine
intonation good right out of the shop window - no obvious flaws on the body or chromework
but I don't really look for this stuff anyway - I'll get someone to look at it

Body/scratchplate finish is 'dyed in' so no finish to scratch off, strap buttons are oddly large - one is behind the neck, which is going to mean finding a strap that can go 'face on'. The pick-up selector, as mentioned above, seems a bit frail. The one thing I can imagine going wrong if you left this guitar in the wrong place is the rubber seal that holds front & back together.

I only bought it today, with the aim of playing live - I can't see how much could damage a plastic body with moulded-in pickups, but I always try to look after guitars anyway. We couldn't find a hard case that would fit it, though - certainly too big for a Tele or Paul case and too thin for a 335 style, so getting it to the gig in safety could be a problem.

Playing without backup would depend on the gig - I hope to use this guitar to save having to carry both an acoustic and an electric with me; but I also like to use tremolo on some songs, which this hasn't got (and you probably couldn't fit one with the chrome six-stepped tailpiece without ruining its 60s sports-car vibe).

I'd like to see it last - it deserves to. I think this could be seen as a classic one-off piece of styling in a few years (where the other Italia models look like a Hagstrom Swede and a mutant Strat, this is unique)

What warranty?
I don't even know how to contact the company - hope I never need to

I've owned guitars for maybe 15 years but only started playing when I started to write songs maybe 10 years ago. My others are a Fender mexico Powerhouse Strat, a Johnson dobro-type acoustic, a Framus thinline semi (which I'll be selling to cover the cost of buying this) and a Tanglewood bowl-back electro-acoustic (which may now have to go as I don't really need two plug-in acoustics. I use an H-H studio 50 with reverb, and I also use a Zoom delay unit to get 50s-ish echo and a Danelectro mini-chorus to get extra warmth on acoustic numbers.

I tried out a Danelectro U2, a De Armond m-65 and M65-C, an Epiphone Crestwood and a Telecaster, but realised that what I really wanted to complement the Strat was something completely opposite in looks and sound - not a solid and not open coil pick-ups, so this fitted the bill, plus it suddenly came down into my price range. The 3rd pickup was a real bonus that clinched it as being a great buy.

If it were stolen or lost I'd try really hard to find another non-mainstream looking electric guitar - and if I couldn't get one of these and bought a standard 2-pickup hollowbody I'd probably have to go get another acoustic as well, so it would mean costing a lot more...

I love the piezo sound, the way the guitar looks like it's a toy but plays like a really well-rounded instrument. I wish the humbuckers were as loud and clear as the piezo and - at the time - I was disappointed that they only had the black finish, not the ice-blue, although having now thrown a few shapes with this, the black-and-white gives it a real chic look that a fender-type colour wouldn't have had.

I'd definitely have paid extra for a fitted case, especially as (a)finding one is going to mean the guiatr can't leave the house for a while and (b) I already know it's not gonna be easy to find one to fit - maybe Italia don't want people to gig these guitars and it's their way of saying 'just use it in the studio'?

Right now, I'm in love with the look and 70% of the sound, so I'll give it high marks - if it either inspires me to write new stuff or turns out to rock with a live amp set-up, I'll come back and go up to 10; if it turns out to be beautiful but useless, I'll let you know.

If anyone has any tips on how to get the 'electric' sound of this guitar up there with the piezo sound so I can switch from song to song without lots of amp-twiddling, let me know.

This is one really cool looking guitar that is modelled after the 1960s Italian guitars. The model I bought has a plastic top (the manufacturer calls it acousti-glass, whatever that means) and a wood back (I assume mahogany, but I'm not sure), semi-hollow with a black rubber gasket between the front and back. The guitar is cream with the fretboard (black) molded into the top. There is one f-hole and an art deco chrome tailpiece. THis is a year 2000 made in Korea. The neck has 16 frets to the body and 22 total frets; rosewood fretboard with mother of pearl type plastic rectangular inlays as well as real mother of pearl dot inlays. It has Gotoh tuners with plastic mother of pearl tuning knobs. THe headstock and back of the neck is painted gloss black. There are two Alnico humbuckers and a Piezo in the bridge with separate input jacks for each. There is a three-way switch and separate volume and tone controls for each input jack. The pickups are chrome. If you like odd art-deco guitars, this is it.

I play mostly blues and rock and this guitar suits my style. I'm playing it through a Princeton Chorus. The neck pickup is nice and mellow, but I wish the bridge humbucker was a little brighter - with the switch in the middle position the guitar can sound a little muddy (it could just be my playing). The piezo sounds great, nice and bright. I haven't had much success playing with both the piezo and the humbuckers.

The action is in the mid range and the setup was just right. I messed around with the pickup adjustments and ended up putting them back to where they were when I bought the guitar. The frets could be a little lower. When I first got the guitar home, I checked it over for flaws and was pretty impressed with the crafting of this guitar. I have a couple of other Korean made guitars and this one is by far the nicest. The fret ends aren't sharp, the neck seated well, the inlay work is nice.

THis guitar is built like a tank. It is heavy (in fact, a little heavier than I like) and so far it has withstood everything I've done to it. I don't tend to abuse my guitars, so I have every expectation that this one will hold up well. Since the top is plastic, it should be indestructable. So far it hasn't shown many scratches (although, it does sometimes suffer from static cling). The strap buttons (non-locking) are oversized so I don't worry about the strap falling off. THere is an irritating "Mondial" nameplate attached to the pickguard (a raised metal tag like the nameplate on a car) that got in the way of my playing. I ended up prying it off of the guitar - if I ever sell the guitar, I'll put it back on, but I'm surprized they stuck it there to begin with.

I haven't had to deal with the company. The warranty is one year, but there wasn't any warranty material with the guitar or any other documentation. Everything gets done through the dealer.

I've been playing for about 30 years but only seriously the last year or so. The only other electric I have is a 1965 Fender Duo-Sonic which I really like, but it isn't nearly as versatile as this guitar (and doesn't sound as good). If I lost this thing, I'd probably get another. There aren't that many electrics on the market that have truely artistic looks and sound nice too (at least not in my price range). I looked at a lot of other guitars of comparable price and this one came out on top both because of the uniqueness and because of the playability. My only hesitancy was the fact that this is apparently a new company without a track record, but so far I've been very happy with this guitar.