REVEREND BUCKSHOT ELECTRIC GUITAR
November 24, 2009 | Reviewer: Paul Bignell
Distributor: ATLANTIS ASIA 03 9818 7778
Tele meets Les Paul? Sort of but not quite. Strat style headstock? Sort of…Tele rear pickup? Gretsch front pickup? You can keep looking for the comparisons but at the end of the day, it’s the Reverend Buckshot from the Reverend bolt-on series.
Some history: Reverend is the brainchild of Joe Naylor, in 1996 Joe launched Reverend Musical Instruments. “”Vintage sensibilities come together with design innovation for tone that satisfies the most discriminating players. Reverend guitars are an extension of your musical and stylistic individuality, a unique voice in a sea of clones.””
Let’s check the press release … Perfect for the player who wants the
T-style tone, but thicker and more versatile. The bridge pickup is our custom T-style single-coil that delivers classic upper-mid honk and bite but with more body. The neck pickup is our Revtron mini-humbucker, carefully repositioned slightly further from the neck to better match the bridge pickup’s tone and output, and increase percussive qualities … full, warm tone but leaner than a full-size humbucker. And if you want the traditional T-style tone, just roll back the Bass Contour control and both pickups become brighter! The solid korina body guarantees a resonant, light, and lively instrument that responds to the player’s touch. So that’s the press blurb … sound good? Lets check.
The Les Paul style tail piece feels comfortable and is great with the full 25 1/2 scale. Access to the strings is a breeze with its flat top, a top-load bridge and tunematic. This allows you to play with the string tension and feel if you like. The neck itself is an amber tinted satin finish. Great looking and feeling finish. It is a maple cap on maple, 60’s fender style. No skunk stripe … just the way I like it. Black dot markers on the board and the top side. The fretboard is quite flat and took a little getting used to for me. Its the more modern 12″” radius, what most want these days. The more I play it, the more I like it. Comes with a black graphite
nut also.
The Volume and Tone pots work well with this pickup combo and both pickups are responsive. Some guys back in the 50’s were putting fatter pickups on the necks of their Teles and this is still a common practice. Danny Gatton, Redd Volkaert, Roy Nichols to name a few. Some hot pickers for you to check out. The neck pickup is a mini humbucker with a Gretsch kinda vibe. It has more mid-range (or honk) as compared to a Tele, it is clean, quiet and has no probs with being overdriven, staying clean and quiet. It’s a tame humbucker. Is this where the Buckshot name comes from? The bridge pickup is what it looks like. A Tele pickup. Exposed, no cover, flat pole pieces. It bites like my ‘69 Tele. The Bass contour pot puts a bit more bang in your twang, or thins things out, putting you in the Tele zone. With the pot hard on you will have a little more output as the lows increase. It’s kinda like dialling between a P90 and your Tele pickup or Jazzmaster and Tele. Between the Volume, Tone and Bass contour controls you really have some options. This works well clean or overdriven. It’ll work for most styles of music.
The Tele style control plate feels good and is very handy to the action making adjustments and swells easy whilst in the thick of it. 3 way pickup switch with black strat style knob. I find the body shape not so comfortable on sitting down with the short horn cutaway, I find this with my Jazzmaster also. Iit slips off my leg. Is it just me? Great for standing up and getting into the action though … what this guitar was built for. The Korina solid body is a medium weight, has a contoured black back and sides, cream bound top on cream top finish. The machine heads are Reverend pin-lock tuners. These took me a little to get used to also. Great for quick string changes, whack the string through the hole and tighten up the back locking wheel (which locks the string into the machine head) and tune…no winding required. Its got one more fret than my Tele too… That’s good I guess, an extra D, for the dogs! It also comes with a Reverend hard case that is a good fit and good build.
The Buckshot is like a Tele on steroids. Plenty of twang, with a thicker, richer sound…options! It’s a well built Korean guitar. Great bang for the buck (or twang for the buck) and an original looking guitar to boot.