ERNIE BALL MUSIC MAN ALBERT LEE

I bought this swamp ash, blue metallic beauty somewhere in the Boston area, maybe it was in Framingham (funny name!).

That was centuries ago, when high-end US guitars were ridiculously expensive over here in the old world.

The would easily cost double the US price and the dollar was still going strong.

Basically it is just a very nice Strat-type of guitar. But with some twists.

First of all I feel that it is an outstandingly good looking masterpiece of product design. Everything seems to be a tiny bit smaller, simpler, straighter, lighter and cooler and more elegant than on your regular Strat.

Compared to the original you get...

a compact headstock without string trees

reliable and light Grover top-locking tuning keys

a fine bone nut

a smoother neck heel

a very practical trussrod adjuster nut at the heel

a Seymour Duncan vintage style pickup set

the bridge pickup beeing a nice Strat-Tele-hybrid

simplyfied electronics

a volume pot exactly at the right spot

a palm-friendly Wilkinson Vintage-type of Vibrato...

...with bent steel saddles

(Today Music Man uses their own vibrato bridge.)

and...

...what a fantastic neck!

It birdseye maple and oil finished only, pretty narrow, but full and round and smooooth!

Incredible, immpecable! 

This is almost the only guitar I never considered modifying at all.

(I even never opend it up, not even the vibrato spring compartment.)

I gigged it a lot and it used to be my favourite axe for years. 

Today I`m more into fatter necks and louder pickups but this here is a highly recommended und much loved vintage-style-super-Strat, especially for smaller folks with smaller hands and the balls to show up at a jam with something that looks e bit different but damn good!

(I would prefer to see a simpler scratchplate material on it. This mother-of-toilet-seat-stuff is a bit over the top for me.)

When a PRS-player told me once that he didn`t like the look of this guitar  I replyed that good taste is a question of good education.

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