McNaught Guitars VSC Blackout

Handmade custom guitars from in North carolina, USA. 22 6105 SS frets, mahogany body and set in neck, awesome maple top and kingwood (like rosewood)fretbord with double square MOP inlays. Guitar has two humbuckers of your choice, 2 volume and 2 tone with a push pull pot for the bridge, a Tonepros Tune-o-matic Bridge and a Stopbar Tailpiece and Sperzel locking tuners. Body is a singlecut Les Paul type. Comes with TKL standard black Tolex hardshell case.
This guitar came with DiMarzio Air Norton in the neck and Tone Zone in the bridge - it was made before I could specify the pickups I wanted. I did end up putting a Suhr Aldrich pickup in the bridge.
My finish is a bright '59? burst? - a book matched flamed maple top, black back and sides (hence called Blackout), the neck is also bound with flamed maple (very nice touch).

UTILIZATION

For an Les Paul shaped guitar the access to the upper frets is better than Gibson. The heel is not bad to get around, and now Dave McNaught has a heeless option - that would be awesome to have!
The neck on this McNaught is truly a work of art. The neck is not as bulky as say a Les Paul Custom, and certainly isn't a Strat radius either. It is just right. Enough neck to grab a hold of but does not feel like a baseball bat. Les Paul lovers will love this neck. Dave McNaught has a very clever way of shaving a bit on the high "E" end side to allow flawless access on that side of the neck to upper registers. It is kind of a soft V shape.
The low "E" side retains enough bulk to wrap your thumb around. Standard medium jumbo 22 fret neck perfectly dressed. McNaught utilizes a construction design of a "Set thru neck", utilizing proven concepts of the stability of a set neck and the added sustain of a neck thru. Here's the genius. This neck designs extends a full 12" into the body.
It is medium heavy in weight, just enough but not too much.
And with two humbuckers and a 3-way switch you can get a nice array of sounds.

SOUNDS

I use this guitar with custom built Peters amplifiers, which are kind of a cross between a Peavey 5150 and high gain Marshall/VHT with a little Boogie thrown in, a VHT Sig-X and an Egnater MOD 50. The amps were paired with an Avatar 4x12 that had Celestion G12h -30's and a Splawn 4x12 with Governor/ManOWar speaker combo, a Earcandy Buzzbomb 2x12 w/ Scholz speakers and a Mojotone 3x12 w/ Celestion CL-80's.

I usually go for a nice thick Jerry Cantrell AIC tone, to use with my modern rock/metal band. This particular guitar and pickup combo is very nice across the whole sound spectrum but does have a tendency to be thick in the bass. It gives a thick heavy tone and good cleans. Suits my style of music very well. The pickups/sounds stay very defined even under high gain.

I also use this guitar in a few cover bands that I've played in which includes songs from The Rolling Stones, Kings of Leon to RHCP, Poison and System of a Down. It does well with all styles.

This guitar has very nice lead tones and nice tight rhythm tones that cut through well. Acoustically the McNaught rings loud and clear and very distinctive.

With this particular one, it tends to go bass heavy so the right combo of pickups is needed to get the best balance.

OVERALL OPINION


I love just about everything concerning this guitar. I liked it so much I bought another one, as well. It is an expensive guitar but it is a quality instrument that will last a lifetime. The attention to detail and quality of these guitars are just fantastic. It has a definite WOW factor when people see the paint job and quality of this instrument. First class and top notch all the way! This is what Gibson should be doing - if you are paying these types of prices!

I will rate this overall a 10!

I usually like thin necked guitars for ease of playing with my style. The McNaught neck is much thicker but it just feels great and I find I can play leads just as easily on it as my thin necked guitars. The neck is much better than fat Gibson's and PRS wide fats.

The thing I like the least about it is the price - but you get what you pay for. If I had to do it again, I would do the same. I wish I could have gotten these many years ago - it would have saved me a lot of buying and selling!

I have owned many guitars and had a number of years where I would buy, try and flip, which enabled me to have many guitars around to try out.
This McNaught is ranked right up there with the best of them in overall satisfaction. This guitar has beat out Ibanez RG's, Charvel/Jackson's, Gibsons, TA's and PRS's that have been in my collection.