This is a Fender Artist D-10 8 & 4 guitar.
The good: The chrome is in nice condition over all, although I am not much of a polisher. You can tell from the pictures that the E9 changer is a lot prettier than the C6. This is because I cleaned it up a little when I buffed out the changer rollers before a session. So, you can see that the C6 is just a little dingy, but not damaged or pitted. The finish is original and in pretty fair condition considering the age with a few cracks in the lacquer, mostly found between the necks. I have a like new leg bag from the D2F company. The case is in fair condition with only one corner coming a little loose because of a missing tack.
I had the pedal rack signed by Junior Brown, Tanya Rae, Pete Amaral, & Johnny Bush from this show: http://youtu.be/9ulYQfxF4iM
I know the signatures will rub off eventually, but left it on there. Like I said, I’m not much of a polisher.
Please see the history on these interesting builds: http://www.planet.eon.net/~gsimmons/shobud/models.html
The not so good: On the back skirt, a few scratch repairs were made with some kind of paint pen or something. (see pictures) Also, every leg has some damage at the top where the leg joins with the guitar body. It appears that this was caused by a pair of pliers. When I bought this guitar, I was told about this, but it really isn’t a glaring flaw, but something that I wanted to declare. Pedal 8 was broken and I found and installed a replacement, but please know that a spacer will need to be installed of some kind, so that pedals 4-8 don’t shift around. I’m going to include the original broken pedal & spacer, which I think can be repaired with a little JB weld. I didn’t want to cut down the original spacer to fill the gap for the new pedal so that the new owner can deal with this issue as he wishes.
Function: I had the opportunity to play a gig a few months ago with a gentleman who had a Sho Bud Super Pro, and upon a direct comparison, the undercarriage guts are identical to the Super Pro. I had read about this in the link provided above, but wasn’t really a believer until I saw it for myself. The only difference in the two guitars is the changer, endplates, headstocks, body cut, pickup, & fret markers. As far as playability, if you like Sho-Buds, you will like this guitar.
Tuning: This guitar tunes as well as any guitar I’ve owned and has minimal cabinet drop. I’ve noticed that I need to adjust the B pedal on the 6th string change & the A pedal on the 5th string change when I break the guitar down and set it up, but that isn’t really unique in itself. The chord pedal arrangement is Emmons set up with E lower and raise on the left leg. RKR lowers a whole tone with a half stop. RKL raises 1st & 7th strings a half tone demonstrated here: http://youtu.be/28-EfBGjCro
The C6th set up is pretty standard as far as I can tell.
Here is a couple of links on how this guitar sounds on a recording.
• Recorded direct through a Midiverb & Demeter Tube Direct Box (This is a working mix, so the song doesn't begin until 00:24) : https://app.box.com/s/ii3n3v4v3k8z12mblian
• Recorded live. . . although it’s sorta hard to hear: http://youtu.be/RoPFszyeggs
Here are lots of pictures:
