Subway Guitars Fatdawg Gene V

The numeric scale here at Harmony Central is misleading due to people A) reviewing guitars they just came home with and thus are still in the "honeymoon phase," B) ludicrously given out by people reviewing instruments they have customized i.e. "I bought this Mexican Strat and changed out all the electronics and hardware and now it sounds great!" or C) mentioning 3 or 4 things that could be subpar about the guitar "well I cut my finger on a poorly installed fret and needed stitches, but I didn't mind because the blood on the fretboard looks so COOL!," yet inexplicably still giving a 10. I am going to stay away from a rating scale and instead give a verbal review. Overall, these Fatdog guitars are everything they seem to be, and maybe a bit more. The sky is the limit here as far as your imagination goes, and as long as you're not asking for expensive custom requests like Lindy Fralin pickups, you can get a very nice U.S. assembled archtop built to your own specs for under $1000 (My Gene V with a special wiring option and a nice hardshell case, was only $825 shipped).
If you are reading this review, you have likely been drooling over the line of inexpensive archtops and custom oddities offered through Subway Guitars (http://www.fatdawg.com). And, like myself several months ago, you may be trying to rationalize purchasing one of these guitars vs. a Korean-made Epiphone - the old "Epiphone is a recognized brand name but those Fatdogs look so COOL..." syndrome. I hope to debunk a lot of myths by not only reviewing my own guitar, but also explaining the options that are available to you as a buyer, and what to expect when dealing with Fatdog and the folks at Subway Guitars. The raw bodies and necks are fully assembled and finished at the Samick factory in Korea to Fatdog's specs. Subway Guitars then offers various combinations of electronics and hardware, which are installed, assembled, and set up in their shop in Berkeley, CA.
Fatdog lists several different models on his website. Among them are rounded cutaway L5-style guitars: the Lowell (a late 40's ES-5 copy with 3 P-90's), the DaAngel (a jazzy thing similar to Epiphone's current Emperor Regent but with an NOS DeArmond pickup), and the Gene V (kind of a rockabilly configuration with 2 P-90's, roller bridge, and a Bigsby). Also available are a couple of guitars based on the ES-175 design, but for this review I'll stick to the L5 variations. Each guitar can be personalized to an extent, which accounts for some confusion when navigating around the Subway website and finding 3 different-looking guitars that are all called "Gene V's." Features can be swapped between models - if you wanted a Bigsby setup on your Lowell, for instance, they can very likely do it for you. Have your own pickups that you want installed? No problem. Do you want Seymour Duncans in the guitar instead of the stock pickups? No problem there, either, Fatdog can get them for you wholesale - although you can expect the price of the guitar to be affected accordingly.
I had lots of questions before I placed my order, and discussed my options with Fatdog, who was very helpful. I chose to have my guitar built on the Gene V platform as I've always wanted a pre-thinline ES-350 and this seemed like it fit the bill. The first thing to note here is, you have two different bodies to choose from - a 16" version that runs approximately 3.25" deep with a semi-rounded cutaway, and features a yellowish clear/blonde finish; and a 17" version that runs 3.50" deep with a more-rounded cutaway, and features a nice orangish/honey color translucent finish (which the photos on the Subway website unfortunately do not do justice). I chose the 17" version, as I wanted the biggest box I could find. Both body sizes are built with a 25.5" scale length. One problem I had - the Gene V comes standard with only one master tone and one master volume on the lower bout, with a pickup-selector toggle switch on the cutaway (it's done like this to allo

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An overall very positive experience.