Superwide Soloist

[tmac]

In about a months time, I'll be the happy owner of a hardtail Soloist with a superwide neck. It will have a vintage wide-spaced flatmount Strat bridge. I.e. 1 7/8" at the nut and 2 1/4" at the bridge...

Why, you ask? Well, I want an electric guitar that lends itself better to fingerstyle playing, especially playing in the classical style. While the neck is very wide, it is still narrower than an ordinary classical guitar neck. Polyphonic music is not easy on the narrow neck of an ordinary electric.

I'm hoping to close the gap between the two instruments, and that this will make practice more effective (two for the price of one if you get my drift...).

Pickups are an issue, and for now I will just slap on an ordinary neck humbucker + bridge trembucker, and see how it fares. Possibly, I'll have to look into blade and/or seven string humbuckers.

:guitaristgif:

 

[kboman]

Carved top, I hope?

 

[JaySwear]

just got this thing put together with a new neck a couple days ago. it's not the clearest picture, and you can tell i didn't take the 5 seconds it would have taken to wipe my fingerprints off :doh: but you can see the pole spacing is pretty damn decent. i was happy with it since my old 1 5/8" nut neck didn't line the strings up too well at all. they're dimarzio f-spaced pickups. at least the bridge is, the neck p90 only comes in one type of pole spacing i think

i'm not a classical player, but i really do love playing on my acoustic. it's a seagull, known for wide steel string necks. the superwide is wider than my acoustic's, but still very comfortable. i think you'll love it! feels great for clean runs and riffs, and feels even better for chords.

 

[tmac]

Carved top, I hope?

Flat, but with all body contours.

 

[tmac]

just got this thing put together with a new neck a couple days ago. it's not the clearest picture, and you can tell i didn't take the 5 seconds it would have taken to wipe my fingerprints off :doh: but you can see the pole spacing is pretty damn decent. i was happy with it since my old 1 5/8" nut neck didn't line the strings up too well at all. they're dimarzio f-spaced pickups. at least the bridge is, the neck p90 only comes in one type of pole spacing i think

[image deleted]

i'm not a classical player, but i really do love playing on my acoustic. it's a seagull, known for wide steel string necks. the superwide is wider than my acoustic's, but still very comfortable. i think you'll love it! feels great for clean runs and riffs, and feels even better for chords.

Nice! Btw, my neck will be almost the same as yours. Warmoth headstock, maple on maple, white saddle. It won't have any dots on the front, though.

My strings might possibly be a bit wider at the bridge, though, if you have a normal bridge. I'm guessing two trembuckers will be a good fit, but I'll see how it goes with what I've got first.

I have a hunch that 1 7/8" might be the perfect neck width for me... I find the classical guitar neck just a touch too wide sometimes. Maybe 1 7/8" is where its at! I know some jazzers like it, and e.g. there is the Soloway Fingerstyle guitar which is also 1 7/8", intended for fingerstyle on electric. I think some of those gypsy-guitars are 1 7/8" as well, although I have never tried one.

 

[JaySwear]

just looked it up on warmoth's site and my bridge is indeed the Vintage Strat Flatmount with a string spacing of 2 1/4". i can take more detailed pictures from above if you want to see this particular pickup. as i said, it's an F-Spaced Dimarzio. the strings aren't over the pole pieces perfectly but i've yet to see a kit guitar that has perfect spacing. even my old gibsons (BFG les paul and SG Special) didn't have perfect string spacing with their pickups.

anyway i'm excited to see this thing come together! a soloist with the warmoth headstock is perfect i think. love that look!

 

[tmac]

Thanks, that's great to hear. Even if there were a possibility of a small improvement in the pickup width department, I still most likely wouldn't change the pickups unless it was for tonal reasons.

Of the available headstocks I prefer the Variax and Warmoth ones the most. I might have chosen the Variax if it had been available on the superwide, although I'm not sure.

 

[kboman]

Carved top, I hope?

Flat, but with all body contours.

:sad1:

Well, it's your guitar. I like the idea of a classical feeling electric!

 

[tmac]

Carved top, I hope?

Flat, but with all body contours.

:sad1:

Well, it's your guitar. I like the idea of a classical feeling electric!

On the other hand, my classical guitar is starting to look like a carved top  :help:

It could be the humidity. I'm pretty sure the bracing is still properly attached. I have been inside it with mirrors and flashlights. Its not resettling back to a flat top after two days without strings, that I know.