Warrior Isabella Signature

This is beautiful hand made in the USA Warrior Isabella 24 fret gold top. Mahogany back with a maple top. The people at Warrior are true crafstman and artists. The guitar is so comfortable and has the coolest carved top I've ever seen. you really have to see it aned play it to understand. Sprezel Tuners..not locking. I would have preferred the locking ones. But they are Black with Gold heads..also very cool looking. Neck has a Purple Heart tone bar down the middle. String through body with the g force bridge. You can string the Low E,A and D throught the body and the high strings up top...very cool. The Bridge piece is counter sunk into the body.

Lots of tone great for Heavy Metal to Blues very Bright sound I find myself using the tone control to take the edge off which I usually never touch the volume or tone knobs on my guitars. It's awsome for leads especially through Metal type distortion stomp box. This guitar covers it all. The only complaint I have is I like a warmer tone. But, if it came down to it I could put some Seymour Duncan SH1's and Custom Custom's in it. But, like is said the tone control takes care of that.

Action incredible extremely low no buzzing. Bridge is set counter sunk it the body so it's just so easy to play and a very fast playing insrument.

The guitar is built solid came with Dunlop flush mount strap locks, which I've never seen before and I love them. Truly a guitar you can use in the studio or on the road..tough as nails

Incredible customer service. The actual owner and builder took the time to call me back and answer questions, They truly back up their instruments and treat you the same if you're buying a ten thousand dollar guitar or a fifteen hundred base model....great people

I've been playing on and off for over 30 years. I own a PRS custom 22 and paid a lot more for it and the Warrior in my opinion is a better guitar with better features for hundreds less. I would replace this guitar if it was stolen. I love the feel, the look and the sound of this guitar. It'a a piece of art that you can play and tough enough to play gigs with. Before you make a decision to buy any boutique guitar...give Warrior a try you'll probably end up choosing one of these. Just as good if not better than a PRS for less..

Warrior's signature series guitars are made of premium grade wood that is typically 80 plus years old; you'd imagine that they are achingly beautiful, and they are. This beauty is no exception. This Isabella signature has the deepest 3D quilt maple top that I've ever seen (take that PRS!!). the body's Mohagony body. The neck has a medium sized carve which is closer to the Gibson '60s neck than '50s. It is made of 2 pieces of Mahogany, with purple heart sandwitched in between (tone bar) with rosewood fingerboard that has a sinewy grains running along the length of the neck. The P/Us are Rio Grande BBQs with the Tortoiseshell pickup covers (to complement the guitar's finish). Oh. the Isabella is a single-cut guitar. This guitar is finished in oil.

I plug my amp through an overdrive pedal, and then directly in to a Budda verbmaster 30. With this combination, I've been able to get a very expressive guitar tone that's remeniscent of Santana or Mark Knopfler. It's midrangey but it also has a shimmering high-end that's very sweet to the ears. Very good for melodic single note runs. Even though I've heard other guitars with the same electronics as this Warrior Isabella, they don't seem to have the same expressiveness. The guitar seems to "breath", and have a very organic quality to it that other guitars makers can't quite capture. If you dig the strings hard, they'll crunch in a very bluesy way, and if you riff on this thing, it'll also distort nicely like a good LP. I like the melodic runs though, and this guitar does that exceptionally. Actually, it does everything exceptionally!

Action, fit and finish were all perfect. I have the action set fairly low, around "1/16" at the 12th fret. The guitar's finised in "hand annointed oil." The oil finish makes the quilt top very 3D, but the wood is so great, I think regardless of the finish it would look deep and 3D. I think the oil finish makes the tone of this guitar what it is, and gives the guitar great resonance.

The Isabella itself will withstand any bashing; the neck joint is solid, as are all the hardwares. The maple top is glued solidly on the body and everything is built with the highest attention to detail. The Oil finish doesn't pretect the wood from beer stains and such for a night at the bars, but I chose the finish because of its sonic qualities. John Lennon stripped his epiphone casino of its finish to let it breathe and resonate better; having this Isabella finishe in oil is the same idea. It's what I looked for.

I called Warrior a few times, the last time on a saturday. I ended up speaking with the wood worker that built the guitar for an hour on the phone on topics ranging from guitar wood, serial number systems to Christianity (Yup, Warrior is a Christian outfit!). Haven't dealt with hard customer support issues though, but seems like they would be nice about it.

Overall, this is the most incredible soundign guitar that I have ever played. It's also the most comfortable and beautiful...