Last week (prior to the Frisell show), Colin lent me the CruzTone 6 string for a couple of days. I'd played a similar model a year ago and dug it a lot but he's made some improvements that make it even better.
In terms of cosmetics, the guitar is considerably lighter than the first model I played. I asked Colin about this and he said it was 25% lighter. This is a nice improvement as the original was quite heavy on the lap (there's a lot of mass on these guitars). This one is more comfortable on the lap and its weight is not an issue. I don't hear any degradation in terms of tone and sustain. In fact, the tone and sustain are superior to the original. I attribute that to the fact that this guitar does not have the Hipshot bridge as did the original.
This guitar uses Rick Turner's horseshoe-style pickup. It's a great sounding pickup and works well in all styles, but I liked it best for overdriven sounds. It seems to have a tremendous amount of output (I didn't measure it on an ohm meter so I'm not sure how much). Not muddy though. Sounded great with my Zendrive overdrive pedal.
In fact, the overall vibe of the guitar's tone, much like Colin's 8-string with the Lollar-Aiello pickup, is very hi fidelity. This guitar would have no problem cutting through any mix. That high fidelity translates into chords with lots of individual string/note definition.
Having it at the house was cool because I was able to compare it with my Asher and Rickenbacker T-Logo bakelite (I also have a Stringmaster but did not A/B it with that guitar). All three guitars have their own unique voice, with the CruzTone winning the prize for the clearest.
On the minus side, I had a couple of minor issues. The input jack placement is on the center/bottom. This looks nice and keeps the cable out of the way but doesn't work when you lean the guitar against the wall. The other issue was the placement of the tone control, which is too close to the strings. Colin told me he plans to address these issues.
[This message was edited by Bill Leff on 03 June 2006 at 09:19 AM.]
