What motivated me to buy this guitar?
I'm a rec-room player, mainly jazz, and I've been wanting to buy a T-style guitar for years but I've never found one that pressed all the right buttons for me. I was thinking of ordering the parts from USACG or Warmoth, but when I realized that G&L made their USA guitars to order, I found what I was looking for. Here is the main things that I wanted in a T-style guitar, in order from most important to me, and that I found in my ASAT Special.
1. A wide neck -- namely, a 1 3/4" nut. I play fingerstyle, and a bit of classical guitar, so I like wide fingerboards. It was this G&L option that first caught my eye. Previously I had dismissed G&Ls because of their standard necks with 1 5/8" nuts. (It would be cool if G&L had more that one contour with a 1 3/4" nut width.) It's also funny that when my guitar was being made I got a call from G&L, via my music store, double-checking that I really wanted a neck this wide! On some other guitars this is the standard width...
2. Ebony fingerboard. I'm not a maple fingerboard guy. Rosewood is nice, but I love the ebony fingerboard I have on my Gibson L5, so I wanted that on this guitar, too. Again, G&Ls options came through for me. They also let me have the fingerboard with no inlay.
3. A clear "hifi" sounding SC neck pup. That's what I thought of the jumbo MFD pup what I tried it out in the music store. I prefer SC to HB pups.
4. The Saddlelock bridge. I'm not a fan of the traditional T-style boxed bridge and I prefer the way the Saddlelock looks, works (and feels on my picking hand).
ASAT Special
Neck:
Profile:#4 ("super-wide" 1.75" nut, 12" radius)
Locking tuners
Bone nut
Maple neck
Ebony Fingerboard
Side dots, no fingerboard inlay
Jumbo frets
Body: fairly standard, but with a...
tortoiseshell pickguard
clear orange finish on swamp ash
I tried putting TI Jazz Swing 13s on them, but the silk got in the way. D'Addario flat wound 12s are on it now, instead. When it's time to change strings, I'm going to strip the silk from the TI's and try again.
I've named my ASAT Ed, after Canadian jazz guitarist Ed Bickert, who is known for playing on a Tele, and who first motivated me to check out T-style guitars for jazz.
ps. I'm loving this guitar, thanks G&L!
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