A new ‘standard’ for 2023.
2023 has now seen us usher in another new model to our line up. We felt that with the success of our ‘Pioneer’ model, that we wanted to keep some of the DNA of that but put it into a modern, well equipped single cut guitar. The Result is the ‘Privateer Standard’. The DNA we kept is in the shape of the guitar. The entire treble side of the body is the same as the Pioneer. We felt this helped keep the modern look, without going too far.
Hold on, we’ve seen this shape from you before! Well, yes thats true. Last year a good customer of ours was hanging out at the workshop and happened to catch a glimpse of the templates for what would be the prototype of the Privateer. After a little bit of sweet talking on his part we ended up building him a completely crazy, 3 humbucker and bigsby loaded custom version of the Privateer.
Refining the design.
Whilst this is an extremely cool guitar with lots of wiring features on top of all the bling, we felt that this core model should be… is simpler. So back to the drawing board we went. The first thing we did, was slim down the top of the guitar, we made it slimmer from the waist up, this helped balance the look a little better. Then we decided to keep the choice of woods set, with Cedrela for the body and centre splice in the neck, a flame maple top and outer neck splices, a choice of Indian rosewood or Exotic ebony fingerboards and finished off with an ebony headstock veneer. All of this is complimented by chrome gotoh locking machine heads and wrap over tailpiece and the very, very cool looking humbucker surrounds and knurled nobs from Anomaly guitar hardware – another UK brand that has really made waves since they took the tired old designs of pick up rings and knobs and updated them. We felt they helped us encompass everything we wanted the Privateer to be.
We wanted this guitar to appeal to both traditional single cut players and modern single cut players. So, with that in mind it was a pretty easy decision to use Sunbear pick ups in the standard model. You can choose from HH, 2 x P90 or our favourite combination, P90 in the neck and humbucker in the bridge. The tones these pick ups are capable of producing in this guitar are out of this world. Straight off the bat you’ll get those sounds the famous 50’s pick ups were loved for, but push them harder, either with a higher gain amp or an OD pedal and you’ll find yourself firmly in ‘tone henge’, it’s very hard to put a guitar down when every note out of it sounds this good. Still, you can go further – we’ve run these through ‘ultra gain’ settings and it absolutely sings, retaining note clarity but giving you all the bark and snarl you’ll ever need to cut through even the heaviest of mixes.
A tested formula but a unique flavour.
The scale length remained the same as the prototype custom, 25″. we felt this offered a little something different to the Pioneer and whilst this scale length is widely associated with a rather large guitar brand, The reactions from the people we let take the Privateer for a test spin this year said it didn’t feel like that other brand at all, it has a flavour all of its own, one we cant wait for you to discover!
The Privateer Standard has already started doing the rounds with high profile content creators and reviewers in the guitar industry so be sure to keep checking our social media and the model page for any new videos.
We still have build slots available for 2024. If you’re thinking about a Privateer, why not get in touch to discuss it, and remember – we offer payment plans on all new builds to help spread the cost.