Subway Guitars Joe Past

This is a new mid fifties ES-175 copy fully bound laminated maple single cutaway archtop with a single P-90, 1 volume, 1 tone. The body is of Korean (Samick) origin I believe, but the hardware is all first rate. Grover super rotomatic gold "stairstep" tuners, gold Schaller (I think) tune-o-matic bridge on a well fitting floating bridge, nice gold tail piece. The guitar is finished in an antique-ish amber color, very nice. The body, neck, head staock, and F-holes are all fully bound in a ivory colored plastic. For a jazz guitar it has all the features needed.

I bought this specifically because I'm getting more and more into jazz and the tone IS what I was looking for. The pickup is balanced across all the strings and very pleasing to the ear through my Roland JC-90. It even sounds good and loud acoustically. At full volume it can really feed back, but that's an archtop for you. I run it at about 7 with the tone at 5 or 6 and its as fat as you want to get, but it retains enough top end to cut through and not get all muddy and thick. At this volume it does not feed back very often, even at 5 on the amp, which is plenty for what I do. I also use a Fulltone Full Drive 2 with it sometimes and it gets even fatter. This box also lets me jump from lead to rhythm without adjusting the knobs. Works for me. With the chorus on the JC its thick and lush, but I try not to overuse it. The P-90 is a little noisy, but only noticeable if I get real close to the amp. Its a good quality pickup, possibly a Barden, I'm not sure. I have found a few "dead" areas on the neck, and a few extremely "live" areas as well. Nothing major though.

This is the only area I was not fully satisfied with. The face of the instrument has what appears to be a razor blade slice starting in the pickup mounting hole and continuing up toward the upper bout. It is visible from the players point of view, but not from the audience point of view. It can't be felt through the finish and is hard to notice unless you really look. The wood piece that supports the neck over the body does not mate up with the tang of the neck well, there's a gap that has been filled in with the finish. Possibly a point of future crackage. The binding joints are not all that precise and there are stains on a few of the corners. The neck has on inch long depression between the 11th and 12th frets. Looks as if someone clamped it without protecting the area. It does not affect the intonation or playability. It is hard to notice, unless you are looking for it. I asked for flatwound 11's set as low as they would go. What I got was roundwound 11's set as low as they would go, which was too low, because it buzzed all over the neck. They must not have played it after setting it up. I also had them replace the wooden compensated bridge with a tune-o-matic. They missed setting floating bridge by a full 1/4", so, needless to say the intonation was WAY off. Again, they couldn't have played it before it went out. These were all easily rectified, though and it is now as playable as any of the "real" 175's that I have tried. The plastic nut is horrible, especially the G and B strings, which need to be physically pulled after adjusting the tuning keys to make the string change pitch. I am having that replaced, anywway, as part of the Buzz Feiten tuning system mod. I also immediately replaced the unmatched strap buttons with Dunlop locking models, but I always do that. The finish overall is clear and clean and the frets are smooth and well finished.

Being an archtop, it must be handled a bit more gently than my Strat, but it seems tough enough. The hardware is all first rate stuff. The finish is thick and seems like it'll hang out for a while. Over all I think it will last. I'm not currently gigging, but plan on (re)starting soon. I think I will be able to rely on it, though I plan to have more than one guitar to handle the bluesier stuff I do.

Haven't dealt with them.

I've been playing for 30 years as a hobby, never professional. Have done a fair amount of jamming. Infrequent gigs. I play a lot at home and inthe studio as well as in a praise band at church. This guitar fits the jazz stuff I do to a T. I also have an Epi 335, an '85 Japanese Strat (both heavily customized), a '70 Fender Palomino acoustic (Strat bolt on neck on a dreadnaught body), an Alvarez 5220-CEQ Artist Acoustic/Electric and an Epi EB-0 Bass. For amps I hav e the Roland JC-90, Peavey Express 112, Trace (Elliott) Acoustic TA60CR, Carvin PB-100. I also use a Line 6 POD as a pre amp through the Roland to do blues stuff. Vox V847 wah-wah (rewired as true bypass), Fulltone Full Drive 2, an original 70's Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory chorus/vibrato (that I rarely use any more), a Zoom 505 that is also collecting dust. Plus more stuff. Overall I'm happy with it. If I couldn't live with the flaws mentioned above, I would have returned it.

Features - FIRST a bit of info., Fatdog is the housebrand of Subway Guitars in Berkely, CA. They don't sell through stores, only the 'net and their own shop. Fatdog creates jazz guitars based on classic designs like Gibson L-5, ES 175, etc. He uses Samick bodies and necks then hardware, pickups, etc from various name brand manufacturers (top grade) to build a boutique instrument to his own specs....check out his website at http://www.fatdawg.com My guitar is a take on the ES 175: one Gibson p-90 pickup at the neck, floating brigde, trapeze tailpiece, single florentine cutaway, Blonde finish gold-tone recreation of an early 50s gibson es 175. Grover stairstep tuner sand gold tailpiece. Gorgeous finish and detail work, double bound body, bound f-holes and neck, rectanglular abalone fretmarkers - a beautiful guitar that looks and feels like it should cost at least double it's list price - you can view it at http://www.fatdawg.com/joepastdet.jpg

I bought this to use professionally as a traditional jazz guitar and it fits the bill to a "t". I have no qualms about turning up at ANY gig with this thing, small group, solo, studio, etc. Does an authentic vintage Gibson L-5 or ES-175 sound better than this guitar? Yes. But this guitar sounds VERY VERY good and when you compare the $600 price tag to three or four grand for an old Gibson, there's no comparrison: pound for pound, dollar for dollar this guitar is just as good. The action needed no adjustment from the shop, played fine, though i lowered it because i have a physical problem with my playing hand. Sound is full, mellow, true, intonation spot on, pickup response is even, clear and responsive (it's a real Gibson p-90). As much variety as you would expect (actually a bit more) from a single pickup guitar. People say p-90s are noisier than humbuckers and i know they are supposed to be, but i find this guitar exceptionally quiet. I have it set up for flatwound .011 strings and play it through a mesa boogie subway rocket. Oh by the way, sounds great acoustically too.

as i have said, it's beautiful...great playability straight out of the case, no adjustment needed, beautiful, gorgeous guitar, excellent first rate workmanship.

have only had this thing for a couple of months and have used it mostly in the studio. so far, zero problems (it's made it from the unusually warm humid fall we had here to winter weather with no structural changes)

dealing with fatdog is an experience. First off, if you want to know about one of his guitars, don't email him, he doesn't like email, but he WILL happily talk to you for a good 15 minutes on the phone describing his instruments, one vs. another, etc. and help you decide. He's a unique guy, openly political. my guitar came with a free cable. on one end near the jack was printed "remember amadou diallo" (the innocent guy shot 41 times by NYC cops) and on the other end is printed "stop police brutality." Fatdog also specializes in buying weird and second tier instruments like Harmony Rockets and hotrodding them with upgraded hardware and pickups. His original creations and on-line descriptions are a hoot and worth viewing just for fun. I had a lot of trouble with the shipment of this guitar due to UPS, who couldn't be bothered to read the address label, and Logan at Fatdog's shop was very, very nice and helpful.

This guy is a perfect combination of the future and past: he has a total understanding of vintage instruments, knows we can't afford a '59 Gibson, and uses the best of modern commerce to bring you a great deal. Because he only sells on-line and from his shop there's virtually no markup. WHen I get some more cash, I am DEFINITELY buying another of his creations.