tjon901 « A great budget jazz box »
Published on 06/01/11 at 08:33The Agile Cool Cat Prestige is another great guitar by Agile. Note the guitar I had did not have the Bigsby tremolo it was the stop tail version. I am not a big fan of Bigsbys and would not recommend that model. This guitar has a maple neck with a bound ebony fretboard with 22 jumbo frets. It has a Canadian Flamed maple top sides and back. It is a full semi-hollow design with two F-holes. The front and back of the body and fully bound with triple binding. It comes with Agile Alnico V magnets. It has grover 18-1 tuners on the headstock which is also bound. Tailpiece combines with the input jack to give you your strap peg. This is pretty cool but I do not think it is the most durable setup. If it breaks you lose your bridge, strap peg, and input jack. You have two volume and two tone controls with a 3 way selector Les Paul style.
UTILIZATION
Being a fully hollow body jazz guitar the top frets are pretty much there for show. The body joins the neck at the 15th fret and after that you are pretty much going to have to do some crazy streches to reach the frets. This guitar is for big chords down on the neck. The ebony fretboard feels great. The arch on the front and the back feels good against your body which is important because this guitar is so big.
SOUNDS
This guitar really is a Cool Cat. The clean sounds with the hollow body are so mellow. In the neck position the sound is super smooth. The bridge position has a bit more twang but it is still super smooth. Like pretty much every other hollow body guitar the guitar is unusable with any moderate amount of gain. The hollow body will provide crazy feedback if you have any gain on. This limits the guitar to only being used in clean sound situations. This guitar is not very versatile but it does what it was made to do very well.
OVERALL OPINION
A Gibson hollow body with these features would cost several thousands of dollars. And it would still have all the same problems. This guitar costs less than a grand and gives you everything you would want or need from a hollow body guitar. It sounds great in a jazz environment and looks great too. If you are looking for a hollow body jazz guitar and dont want to spend several thousand dollars you should look at the Agile Cool Cat.
UTILIZATION
Being a fully hollow body jazz guitar the top frets are pretty much there for show. The body joins the neck at the 15th fret and after that you are pretty much going to have to do some crazy streches to reach the frets. This guitar is for big chords down on the neck. The ebony fretboard feels great. The arch on the front and the back feels good against your body which is important because this guitar is so big.
SOUNDS
This guitar really is a Cool Cat. The clean sounds with the hollow body are so mellow. In the neck position the sound is super smooth. The bridge position has a bit more twang but it is still super smooth. Like pretty much every other hollow body guitar the guitar is unusable with any moderate amount of gain. The hollow body will provide crazy feedback if you have any gain on. This limits the guitar to only being used in clean sound situations. This guitar is not very versatile but it does what it was made to do very well.
OVERALL OPINION
A Gibson hollow body with these features would cost several thousands of dollars. And it would still have all the same problems. This guitar costs less than a grand and gives you everything you would want or need from a hollow body guitar. It sounds great in a jazz environment and looks great too. If you are looking for a hollow body jazz guitar and dont want to spend several thousand dollars you should look at the Agile Cool Cat.