NGD!! (well, it's still in transit....)

[DanDoulogos]

About a year ago, June 17, 2018, while seated around a patio table with my wife's family, I turned to my nephew, whom I knew to be a player and was looking for a good, but inexpensive guitar, and suggested that he pick up an ASAT Special Tribute model. They had one on Amazon.ca, and I had been paying attention to it because I knew the seller would sometimes drop the price on a guitar to make room for new inventory. I had been watching this one because the price had started to go down, and I told myself it it hit such and such a mark, I'd bite. When I pulled it up on my phone to show it to my nephew, the price had dropped significantly below my "BUY IT NOW YOU MAD MAN--NOW!!!" mark, and I instantly regretted showing him the guitar. To my relief, he had his heart set on a Les Paul, either a studio or an Epiphone - so I sat there worried that by the time I got home the guitar would be sold - and I pulled the trigger then and there. I'd never bought a guitar through my phone before - but there is a first for everything.

It was awesome.

About a week ago, someone put up, in our local buy and sell, an American ASAT Special - semi hollow in very good condition, wanting half (or more) what it was really worth. Obviously I started Jones-ing for the guitar, since even up here, where G&L guitars sell for woefully less than they are worth - this was a crazy, crazy deal. So crazy in fact, that I assumed there must be some douchery afoot. It was probably stolen, or priced in error. Never the less I applied to the Ad. I waited hours, and applied again, then again a few more hours later. Nothing. The ad was gone the next day, and frankly, so where the other ads the seller had posted.

Dejected, I mourned for a couple of days. It was the exact copy of my Tribute, only semi Hollow, and American, and with a Maple, rather than rosewood neck, and my preference is Maple. I thought to myself, it would be fun to get the guitar and see if my wife noticed it - since I had one that already looked similar. I thought I might even be able to sneak it under the wife radar ("what this? You've seen my blue ASAT before? Haven't you ever noticed it was a semi-hollow?") Not that I'd do that, my wife is okay with me buying guitars as long as the bills are paid and I keep the herd about the same size (new guitar comes in, old guitar goes out). So I had already (in my mind) been making the plans for how to bring in this new stallion - I'd sell the Tribute, and replace it with the American.

Since that all fell into nothing, to complete my mourning, I needed to know what a guitar like that was selling for nowadays. So I found myself on Reverb, looking at an American blueburst, Semi-hollow Asat Special that was listed here in Canada, with the original HSC. It was priced about where I thought it ought to be. In fact it was a little less than I thought it ought to be. Suddenly, I thought to myself - the dream doesn't have to die here. I noticed that this ad allowed offers, and I hummed and hawed until I convinced myself that making an offer couldn't hurt. So I did some math, and made an offer. I was expecting a counter - since the guitar looked to have no marring whatsoever - the only (noted) wear and tear was some chrome flaking on the knobs.

I justified myself in making an offer on the guitar by telling myself that I was not going to barter. If my offer was accepted, I'd take it, and I could live with my conscience (i.e. my wife), firm in the knowledge that I had paid much less than the guitar was truly worth.

So they shipped it yesterday - I should have it by Thursday. I'll post some pics when it arrives.

It's my first Semi Hollow, and my fourth G&L. I've already added it to the registry. Now I wonder if I am actually going to sell my Tribute - to be sure, it's a fan-tastic guitar. I'm crazy-impressed by the quality of G&L's tribute guitars. Maybe I've just been very, very lucky, but seriously, both my Tributes are solid, well built works of art, that sound amazing. Now that I have this guitar on the way, I'm already rethinking my previous justification ("I will sell the ASAT Tribute").

I'll let you all know how it goes down when the guitar gets here.

[Danley]

Awesome Look forward to seeing it. I played a hollow ASAT in a store the other day that I liked, but it's funny I'm more accustomed to G&Ls not being lightweight guitars. I also like playing the 'bought a new guitar, is my wife going to notice' game, but I think she mostly notices yet does not care.

Similar to your situation though, I really will need to clear more out before I bring more in- and I've been thinking about picking up another Tribute or two to replace a few desperately cheap Strat copies I have kicking around as pickup testbeds. I'm also impressed with the ASAT Tribute Deluxe left at my mom's house - great pickups and build quality. But I'm not really a huge fan of matte necks, and the fretwork being less than ideal is something I still have to take care of.

[dhgleaves]

Don't sell the Tribute. Sell something less important, like a car.

[DanDoulogos]

Don't sell the Tribute. Sell something less important, like a car.

+1

I was chatting with a fellow at work yesterday about just that. I *really* like both my Tributes. It makes me feel sort of empty inside to think of selling one of my favorites just to make room for it's American twin (avec semi-creux).

Danley: I haven't played a semi hollow ASAT yet, but I have an American Fender Telecaster Select, with a figured KOA top bound in wood atop an Empress body - it's surprisingly light (Empress wood is a lightweight and porous hardwood that resembles swamp ash, but weighs less). I don't know if it's chambered also, but it's a joy to play, in part, because it is so light (5 or 6 lbs). At the time I bought the Tribute last year, I was actually interested in picking up a semi-hollow ASAT, but the suddenly crazy-discounted Tribute falling into my lap interrupted that pursuit.

I note that the Guitar is now in my home town, being processed. Should be out for delivery tomorrow!

[DanDoulogos]

It shipped on Monday afternoon, and was delivered to my door Wednesday at 10:06 a.m. local time.

My first impression was not the best. The strings had been wound around the post with the winds beneath the strings rather than above them, and each string had only a wind or two before it was snipped of. I didn't notice it at first though, since there was a significant fret buzz starting around the the tenth fret. The saddles had been lowered significantly to get a very low action, but I'd rather have just a moderately low action without any buzz, than really low action with buzz. Having adjusted that, I re-tuned and played a bit, but it didn't feel right. I play 10-52s, and these looked to be 9s, so tonally it sounded a bit anemic - but there was something else, ah... that's when I noticed the strings were wound up, rather than down, and they had precious few winds around them. I was concerned at first that the tuners might be bad, since they didn't seem to stay in tune for long - but once I flipped the wind, it got a whole lot better.

The pickups are set so that the bridge pickup is noticeably quieter than the neck, and anemic sounding. I'm going to set it up when I have some time. The knobs will need to be replaced as the chrome is lifting off them, and the nut will need some TLC to accommodate the 52s I plan on stringing up with when I do the setup.

Over all I am quite satisfied with the guitar. She is certainly light, in fact I didn't realize how light until I lifted both the Tribute Special and the semi-hollow special, one in each arm. Suddenly the Tribute feels like a heavy beast!

Near future purchases: A strap, some locking strap buttons, new chrome knobs - and maybe some locking tuners. I'm not a fan of slotted tuners, and these aren't as snug and creamy feeling as I like.

How does the American Semi Hollow compare to it's non semi-hollow Tribute counterpart?
Tone-wise: it's a wee bit brighter, maybe more than a wee bit, and that brightness isn't all in the treble range - the bass notes come through with a bit more articulation, so that while it sounds just as bassy, it loses some of the mud. I'm over stating it here, but I don't know any other way to describe it.

Build/quality wise: About the same really. I mean, some of the components are better on the American one - but the actual build quality - the wood, the cut of the guitar, the finish the neck - all these are comparable. If I was forced to choose the better build quality, I'd be hard pressed to say. The Indonesian one seems better on all points, but it's less than a year old, and it's being compared to a guitar built 14 or 15 years ago. So while it seems to win the build quality trophy - it isn't really a fair comparison. The bottom line there is, if you buy a Tribute model, you're still buying a great guitar.

Next up, the promised pics

Here is a picture of her alongside some of the herd


Here she is alongside her Asian brother (left). You can't tell from the photo but her blueburst has aged a bit into a slightly greenish hue when viewed head on.


For anyone wondering about the other guitars, I keep all my allen keys (at least the guitar ones) together in an Altoids tin in one of my cases. They move around enough that I wasn't sure which one, and so when I lifted the saddles to get rid of the buzz, I ended up opening three or four cases before I found it, and having a few guitars out, I decided to snap some shots of all of them together, so I got the rest of my "main" guitars out and lined 'em up for some photos.

From left to right (Back row) Heritage 157 CM, Koa Top Fender Select Telecaster, Tribute Comanche
From left to right (Front row) Tribute ASAT Special, Fender strat plus, ASAT Special Semi Hollow

[Danley]

Nice - you can even see the age difference in the pictures (or else the US had aged plastic to begin with.) There aren't many 'gives' that tell you immediately whether you're looking at a Tribute or the US model with those two. Looks like a bit more woodgrain shows on the US (not that that has anything to do with where a guitar was made.) I'm curious if Tribute uses polyurethane or the thick plasticky poly.

Remembering a few more nits to pick on my Tribute - the jack arrived loose and was cross-threaded hard, and there's some finish sloppiness at the edges of the binding. But they don't even make a carved top US ASAT so again no direct comparison is even possible. They are for sure good guitars - much better than any import (and a lot of US guitars) were 15 - 20 years ago.