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tjon901 « Nunos version of a strat »
Published on 06/02/11 at 14:15The Washburn N6 came out in 2005. Nuno an accomplished guitar player was looking for more diversity in his sound so he and Washburn set out to make a stratty version of the Nuno signature model. Nuno Bettencourt is the guitarist for the long time band Extreme. Extreme had some hits the 80s and are still going today. Since the early 90s Nuno has played Washburn guitars exclusively. A unique part of Nunos guitar is the neck joint. Nuno hooked up with a luthier named Stephen Davies to design the guitar. Together they designed a guitar with a very cool neck joint. The neck joint is ideally suited for neck through guitars but for Nuno and the ease of repairability they made this guitar a bolt on. To get a more strat like tone from the guitar the guitar has a maple fretboard and a pickguard along with two Seymour Duncan single coils along with the Bill Lawrence 500xl in the bridge. These pickups are mounted in the pickguard to give more of a strat tone.
UTILIZATION
Because this is just a modified Nuno signature model guitar it plays just like a normal Nuno model. The flat fretboard lets you have a super low action and that makes it very easy to play. The extended cutaway lets you play all the way up the neck. With the guitar only having 22 frets every one of them is very easy to reach. The volume knob is kind of in a strange spot. It is not easy to do volume swells with it if you are used to the a Fender or Jackson volume knob placement. The tone knob is also way out of the way. The pickup slector is also out of the way and being a 5 way selector you will not be switching pickups very quickly. All N6's have the Buzz Feiten tuning system which is a mod on the nut which helps make the inotation of the guitar as close to perfect as you can get without changing the frets.
SOUNDS
This guitar gets pretty close to the strat tone they were looking for. The neck pickup is placed pretty far back because of the hole for the trussrod so it has slightly more high end than a normal strat neck pickup would get. The 500XL in the bridge still cuts through like crazy but with the single coils it kind of over powers them. The volume and output difference you get with the single coils and the 500XL is pretty extreme.
OVERALL OPINION
The Washburn N6 is a great playing guitar that gets a lot of the strat tones. Nuno has been playing these guitars for nearly 20 years now so you know there is something about them that draws you in. When you play one you will feel the unique feeling you get from the innovative design.
UTILIZATION
Because this is just a modified Nuno signature model guitar it plays just like a normal Nuno model. The flat fretboard lets you have a super low action and that makes it very easy to play. The extended cutaway lets you play all the way up the neck. With the guitar only having 22 frets every one of them is very easy to reach. The volume knob is kind of in a strange spot. It is not easy to do volume swells with it if you are used to the a Fender or Jackson volume knob placement. The tone knob is also way out of the way. The pickup slector is also out of the way and being a 5 way selector you will not be switching pickups very quickly. All N6's have the Buzz Feiten tuning system which is a mod on the nut which helps make the inotation of the guitar as close to perfect as you can get without changing the frets.
SOUNDS
This guitar gets pretty close to the strat tone they were looking for. The neck pickup is placed pretty far back because of the hole for the trussrod so it has slightly more high end than a normal strat neck pickup would get. The 500XL in the bridge still cuts through like crazy but with the single coils it kind of over powers them. The volume and output difference you get with the single coils and the 500XL is pretty extreme.
OVERALL OPINION
The Washburn N6 is a great playing guitar that gets a lot of the strat tones. Nuno has been playing these guitars for nearly 20 years now so you know there is something about them that draws you in. When you play one you will feel the unique feeling you get from the innovative design.