Форум гитаристов

1. VIGIER CUSTOM SURFRETER
I recently began endorsing VIGIER GUITARS of France, a great company who has taken fretless guitar seriously by putting the SURFRETER into production.

The obvious point about this guitar is the fretless fingerboard, which is made from a brass-like alloy (VIGIER calls it Delta Metal). The neck itself is carbon-reinforced, in place of a truss rod. I like this non-adjustable arrangement myself, because the neck never moves. It's very solid. It just so happens that this is exactly how I've built the necks on my guitars.

The SURFRETER pictured here is completely different from the production model because I made some major changes to it:

a.) I shortened the scale () by extending the saddle screws and moving the saddles forward by 2 cm. Normally, this would be a ridiculous thing to do on a guitar, so I've never heard of anyone doing this (it can only be done on a fretless). When the scale is shortened, the position makers on the side of the neck become unusable, so I covered them up and plotted new ones.

b.) Originally, the SURFRETER had 3-pickups, a 5-pos. switch, vol & tone. I didin't need all that, so I took out everything and installed a Dimarzio X2N, in a postion that was determined by the alignment of the moon and stars that day. One volume control and that's it. Thanks Eddie...

As the guitar was now minus 2 pickups, a pickup selector swiitch and a tone control, I had a custom pickguard made, one that matches the body's gloss black finish. The gold-colored fingerboard now stands out more visually, which I think it should.

With these modifications, the SURFRETER is much closer to my liking, and people always ask me how I got that guitar to sound the way it does. It's a great guitar...