Wandre Dallas/Davoli

Circa 1963; hollow body with aluminium neck (mahogany fretboard, jumbo frets) and floating 2-pickup module joined to bridge and neck but not attached to body (see pics at http://guitars.agora.it/html/wandre/dallas2.html). Made in Italy by eccentric modernist Wandre Pioli, a large singe cutaway based on a distorted Les Paul shape, with a single Rickenbacker-ish sound hole fitted with a plastic grate. I believe the body is poplar (Had to have it re-finished after a very poor quality earlier refin job). Two Davoli brand single coil pickups with on-off switches and individual volume controls, but no tone control, just a hi/lo treble/bass switch. Bridge is a Hofner type - a piece of wood inset with pieces of fretwire for saddles.

I bought this mainly for its looks but it sounds sweet too! I have been playing 3-chord Velvet Underground-type rock'n'roll and repetitive mininalist drone stuff with a Boss DD-5 delay and Dano Tuna Melt tremelo, Walco Sound Go Round, Craig Anderton passive tone unit and 'tube sound' fuzz, through a small Elpico valve amp, for home recording. Because it only has two tone settings it is either very full and boomy or very toppy, and this is exaggerated by your choice of bridge or neck pickup. Getting the right balance between the pickups can take a little time, and generally the lack of a traditional tone control does limit the sounds that the Davoli pickups produce. Acoustically the sound is beautiful, very rich. On a day-to-day basis, I play it acoustic, so I've increased the rating.

The aluminium neck is absolutely straight and with a lot of small adjustments over time, the action is now wonderful, although adjusting the bridge height is tricky. There is a screw on the back that alters the angle of the neck, and it is the interplay between this and the bridge height that takes a bit of working out.

I wouldn't bring this guitar to a down and dirty rock'n'roll venue, the overall feel with the hollow body and floating pickup module is quite fragile; it needs to be treated gently, not thrown around the stage.
The strap buttons are extremely small and thin, which means that I would definitely have to replace them if I was playing live with it. I wouldn't depend on it in a live situation, but might bring it to play for a song or two.

N/A - company stopped in late 60s

I have been playing for 20 years and have amassed a collection of quirky european solid-body guitars (2 x Hagstrom, Watkins, Futurama, Galanti) and one US guitar (a 3-pickup Valco/Airline). This is my first semi-acoustic; I jumped at it as I just love the weird shape and the alu neck, crazy headstock and trapezoid pickups. If I lost it I would be very sad as it is very rare, and I have never seen another Wandre anywhere. It's my most expensive guitar, but I got a bargain. The neck is beautiful to play although the body shape is slightly awkward and the controls are definitely limited - If I had it 10 yrs ago I would have added a rotary tone control, but I wouldn't change it now.