Peerless Tonemaster Player

well made big archtop. arched on the back too. cant fault the build quality at all. all in all a great guitar for the price. gets a 9 because it only has basic features that you'd expect from a guitar of this type, i know some people like coil taps etc but this is a standard guitar.

it has a rich full and varied sound when combining both pick ups. very nicely balanced between the bridge and neck p-up. sounds nice through my delta blues. again i cant fault it and i suspect it'll only get better with age. i dont use effects when playing this guitar. very quiet and again i think this is because its well built.

no flaws, all good. a medium c neck profile that may just be hinting at the chunky side but fits nicely in my palm and plays easily all the way up the neck. these are made by the company that made guitars fro gretsch and they got the hump when gretsch moved production to a chinese factory so in retaliation they made these guitars and they are well made at that. there's even binding on the f holes!!! if i was gonna really nit pick i'd say the wires inside should be shielded like my es175 copy but it aint noisy so what the hell eh?

cant see a problem arising! pots are quiet and feel good and smooth. even thjought it aint an ex[ensive guitar there doesnt seem to be anything cheap on the guitar.

dunno

been playing since the days of naoh! loads of amps and guitas have slipped through my fingers and this is a good little rock n roller.
being a headstock snob i'd prefer it to have a more gibsonated headstock but thjats a real minor point consider you dont actually play the headstock!

Brand new yesterday. Nothing on the guitar to say where it is made - I assume Korea or the like. 22 fret, laminated spruce & maple top & sides, Bigsby B60 trem, 2 volume/2 tone and a selector switch in the Les Paul position (not hiding down by the bridge, as with some other models in the same price range). Neat little machine heads. It is, essentially, a poor man's Tennessee Rose and I chose this understated red and chrome model over the bright orange and gold. I'm a recent convert to such instruments and think it is an extremely handsome guitar. It came with a case that I would not trust to airport baggage handlers but which will be more than adequate for general use.

The pickups are, apparently, humbucker Gretsch dual Filter Tron Alnico-v-Magnets, which means absolutely nothing to me. The whole realm of models & pickups with these Gretsch style guitars seems a dark art and they could have said they were Squirrel Nutkin Tribobbin PQs and I would be none the wiser. However, they do sound rather nice: a tastefully mellow neck tone and a brasher bite at the bridge. Plenty of diversity from blending the pickups and twiddling the tone pots. Perfect for country, rockabilly, jazz and anything jangly. The Bigsby works very well and has settled down even in the last 24 hours. I play it through a Laney LC15R (a brilliant little combo) but may treat myself to a Fender Blues Jnr, which really does give THAT sound. I use a Line 6 DL4 for slapback, a Marshall ED1 compressor and a Blackstar HT Dual for when I want to get dirty.

The only let down is the (authentic 1950s style?) wooden bridge and lazily installed nut, which make for a high action and dubious intonation. Probably fine for real men who tinker with pick-up trucks but not so good for me. This will be sorted out by my local luthier and I might have an adjustomatic or similar bridge put on. The pickups are minutely misaligned, though this doesn't seem to affect the sound at all. Apart from the playability, I'm heartily impressed with the finish and fitting on the guitar - though the hideous see-through scratch plate came off within an hour of arriving back home...

I certainly intend to take this out gigging and can't imagine why it wouldn't survive. I don't live an especially rock'n'roll lifestyle and have never wittingly stage-dived: if I did, I can't imagine the wooden bridge staying in place but, at my age, that would be the least of my worries.

So far, so good...

I've been playing for 35 years - 15 of those professionally - and am now a full time secondary school teacher. I also play lute, mandolin, Middle Eastern Oud and other plucky things but my electric guitar collection includes a USA Tele, a Japanese Strat (heavily modified), a Gibson SG and an early Gordon Smith. Once set-up properly, I can't think of any reason why this shouldn't sit happily alongside these trusty old tools. I had been thinking of buying a Gretsch but shivered at the thought of spending ??1,500 on a style of guitar I know so little about. If it was knicked, I'd claim the insurance and buy another one straight away: for the money it's a fabulous piece of kit and ideal for my new-found rockabilly enthusiasm. All I need to do now is fashion my hair into a DA, swap the Nissan Primera for a Chevvie and persuade my wife to wear unsuitable halter-neck tops & change her name from Sophie to Betsy-Lou.

Korean made single cutaway hollow body semi acoustic guitar with laminated spruce top and laminated maple back and sides.
22 frets on a set neck.
two humbuckers (dual filter tron stle alinco-V magnet) with two volume contorls, two tone controls and one toggle switch.
came with plush deluxe hard case and cleaning cloth.

I play in a ska band called the monotones and use this guitar for that.
originally i was using a 1990 fender strat for the band and although that was a very nice guitar i felt i could get more out of the peerless so now i only use the strat as a backup.
the sound is very big, not loud, just big. It has a lot of bottom end and the top end cuts through quite nicely, my only issue is that sometimes the timbre of the thicker strings doesnt cut throgh as much as the top strings and that could either be due to the strings im using or the ensemble im playing in, alot of the instruments in the band sit quite comfortabl in the tenor register.
I usually run this guitar through a line 6 spider II hd150 with a 4x12 speaker cabinet. Not the best amp for this guitar but it still produces some wonderful sounds. I have run this through other amps such as a small fender frontman combo and it played wonderfully, recently at a gig where the backline was provided i ran it through one of the new marshall valve amps (jmc or something, not a marshall fan) and it sounded wonderful.
i usually only use clean but i have tried it with a bit of distortion and it handles that quite well, although i prefer to use this guitar for clean and in more jazzy setting(big band, combos etc) it handles distortion and high gain as well as it handles the clean mellow sounds.
the guitar is also quite responsive to the smaller things, meaning you dont have to thrash the **** out of this guitar to acquire nice sounds, gentle playing often produces the better tone and the more responsive sound. On saying that you can still thrash the **** out of this guitar and it will still play as well as any other guitar made for thrashing the **** out.
the bassist i play with quite acurately summarised why i chose to swap from a strat to this peerless.
"its less jinggly janggly, and more jimmy jazzy"

factory set up was fine, perfect.
intonation was perfect and the action was nice however i did have to raise the action slightly to stop a bit of buzzing on the first fret.
the finish was fine, couldnt see any problems with it when i got it and still dont have any problems.
i took the clear perspex pickguard off because the guitar itself looks beautiful and the pickguard was a bit of an eyesore, plus i usually play with my fingers.
my only other issue is the neck, very nice and smooth but its not as fast as the neck on my strat but to be honest the neck on the strat was a wierd neck that i didnt see on any other strats (it was maple neck but very heavily varnished) so the neck of the peerles is very good but obviously isnt as good as the strat neck whcih was a super neck.

i took this guitar home for a trial on the tuesday, then played it with the band on tuesday night, i then paid for it on wednesday and gigged wiht it the following monday.
absolutely perfect, well built beast of a machine, i would and do gig without a backup and verything on it just seems perfect.
i wouldnt want to throw it about though. I like it too much.
demands a bit more respect though than my strat did, i have to look after this better.

I havent, as of yet, dealt with the company however there is a representative in the nearby area who is apparently very friendly.
I have a friend who runs a music shop who introduced me to peerless and he says that the peerless guy he deals with is much better than the people he has to deal with from other companies such as carlsbro or fender.

ive been playing guitar for seven years now and although that isnt that long ive spent the last year gigging around the uk at all sorts of venues such as the bournemouth opera house and the camden barfly supporting big acts such as the beat, the dead 60s and the go! team.
so im quite picky about my sound and the type of guitar i use.
I've played and owned a variety of guitars from bc rich warlocks to epiphone les pauls. for the past two/three years i was settled on a 1990 pink paisley strat however the peerless very easily replaced that due to how easy it is to play and how bloody good it sounded.
i would recommend this guitar to anyone who wants a nice guitar with a big tone that is very responsive to all the little things you do on the fretboard.
i have told people they need to get one simply because of how lush it is.
i want to possibly go for the tonemaster custom as it has more features and uses soolid wood instead of laminated.

so to recapitulate, get a peerless.