G&L Invader XL

The G&L Invader XL is another part of the Invader series. This guitar has a swamp ash body, maple neck with a maple fretboard, an original floyd rose, 22 frets, a 12'' radius, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone, a three way switch and a coil split switch.

UTILIZATION

The guitar is pretty awesome. For one, it has a floyd, and I'm a huge floyd rose fan. The construction of this guitar easily destroys 90% of the Fenders out there, too. However, this guitar is more comparable to an Ibanez or Jackson with the way it's designed. Upper fret access isn't too bad, and the fretwork itself is top notch. I really enjoy the 12'' radius as it works nicely for chording, but you can also achieve low action without worrying about fretting out. With a normal Fender radius, it's harder to get real low action.

SOUNDS

The guitar has some good bite to it thanks to it being a swamp ash guitar. The JB in the bridge has some strong treble, but the ash also helps give it some low end. You can do hair metal tones with ease. The neck humbucker is a Duncan '59, and it sounds perfect for this wood combo. It's clear, yet it's fat and smooth sounding. It seems to fit in the frequency spectrum perfectly. On top of that, there's also a coil split switch on this which allows you to split the coils for that single coil kinda tone. Great for clean lines.

OVERALL OPINION

Try to find one of these used if you can. They're great guitars with great fretwork, and they usually sound fairly resonant. The biggest issue with these guitars is the resale value thanks to G&L's awful marketing campaign. Trying them out in the store might be hard as there aren't many dealers, so you'll probably have to buy blind.