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tjon901 « Vox solid body with their cool pickups »
Published on 01/12/12 at 21:14When you think about innovation in the guitar world Vox isnt the first company that normally comes to mind but if you look what they have been doing lately it is an accurate label for them. I played their HDC-77 recently and it was a breath of fresh air into the semi-hollow scene. This guitar is great in just about every area. The guitar has a mahogany body with a maple top. The set in neck is a 1 piece mahogany neck. The tuners up top are a set of super smooth Vox tuners. The bridge is their own design it is kind of like a tune-o-matic with the stop tail incorporated into the design. It is a big solid piece of metal. The pickups are a set of the super cool Vox Coaxe pickups. The controls are a master tone and a master volume with a 3 way switch. There are 2 smaller switches to control the mode of each pickup.
UTILIZATION
This guitar is super comfortable. The whole body has an arch to it even the back. The back has a nice belly cut as well. There is a cut away portion where the neck joint is for better upper fret access on the neck. The scale is 25.1 inches so you get a bit less tension on the strings for ease of playability. The frets are finished to perfection. The action was set up beaufifully. This combined with the arched body means this guitar instatly feels like a part of your body. It is very light and perfectly balanced as well to help acheave this.
SOUNDS
These Coaxe pickups could be game changers in the guitar world. In the age of modelers these pickups do everything and do it the old fashion way. They are like 3 pickups in one. Each pickup has a set of rail magnets with a set of pole pieces inside them. This provides great noise cancelling but also gives great tonal variety. Each pickup has a mode selector 3 way switch. You can select what kind of tone you want from each pickup independently. The modes are clean crunch and dirty. You can get a single coil tone, a p90 tone or a humbucker tone. Having all these tonal options without modeling is something you dont see on many guitars. When playing you will naturally be able to select the combination you want. The single coil setting had a great bell like tone. The single coil setting gets you nice twang in the tone. While the P90 setting has angry and snarled like you would expect a P90 to. The humbucking setting was nice and smooth and sounded like you would expect a guitar that looks like this to sound. The jazzy tones just fly out in humbucker mode. The sound is super smooth.
OVERALL OPINION
If you are an old school guy but want a super versatile guitar this Vox is a great option for you. The ability to emulate the tones of 3 different kinds of pickups at will on each individual pickup without modeling is something most people think is impossible. When guitar makers are not afraid of change they can do some great things. If Gibson or Fender did something like this people would be screaming from the rooftops about how awesome they are. Vox has done it and its flown under the radar for a while. If you are looking for something versatile and somthing different you should check out some of Vox's offerings.
UTILIZATION
This guitar is super comfortable. The whole body has an arch to it even the back. The back has a nice belly cut as well. There is a cut away portion where the neck joint is for better upper fret access on the neck. The scale is 25.1 inches so you get a bit less tension on the strings for ease of playability. The frets are finished to perfection. The action was set up beaufifully. This combined with the arched body means this guitar instatly feels like a part of your body. It is very light and perfectly balanced as well to help acheave this.
SOUNDS
These Coaxe pickups could be game changers in the guitar world. In the age of modelers these pickups do everything and do it the old fashion way. They are like 3 pickups in one. Each pickup has a set of rail magnets with a set of pole pieces inside them. This provides great noise cancelling but also gives great tonal variety. Each pickup has a mode selector 3 way switch. You can select what kind of tone you want from each pickup independently. The modes are clean crunch and dirty. You can get a single coil tone, a p90 tone or a humbucker tone. Having all these tonal options without modeling is something you dont see on many guitars. When playing you will naturally be able to select the combination you want. The single coil setting had a great bell like tone. The single coil setting gets you nice twang in the tone. While the P90 setting has angry and snarled like you would expect a P90 to. The humbucking setting was nice and smooth and sounded like you would expect a guitar that looks like this to sound. The jazzy tones just fly out in humbucker mode. The sound is super smooth.
OVERALL OPINION
If you are an old school guy but want a super versatile guitar this Vox is a great option for you. The ability to emulate the tones of 3 different kinds of pickups at will on each individual pickup without modeling is something most people think is impossible. When guitar makers are not afraid of change they can do some great things. If Gibson or Fender did something like this people would be screaming from the rooftops about how awesome they are. Vox has done it and its flown under the radar for a while. If you are looking for something versatile and somthing different you should check out some of Vox's offerings.