David Gilmour signature Strat to be released September 2008

Riaan-Combrink

Fender is to release Gilmour's signature Black Strat in September 2008. http://www.davidgilmour.com/ and http://www.davidgilmour.com/news_photos/blackstratfans.htm. Here's a pic of the stockmodel prototype (they'll also have a more expensive 'Relic' model which includes all DG's mods). [img]http://[/img] Here's a great article recording the history and development of DG's black-strat: http://www.gilmourish.com/?page_id=66 Enjoy. Riaan C [img][/img]

AlanRatcliffe

I saw this earlier today too. Saw a thread on TGP and followed it.

So Gilmour plays a partscaster! It's basically a late '60s alder body with an '80s reissue '57V neck, a "neck on" switch, a DiMarzio SSL-1 in the bridge and Fender CS'69 pickups in neck and middle. Black finish, black pickguard and cream pickups.

Let's hope that Fender don't rout for a Kahler trem and then fill the hole like the original. ?

Riaan

Aha...two months to save!

AlanRatcliffe

Well, at an estimated $2,500 - or about R25K - R30K (although that seems to be knowledgeable guesswork) I think you may be saving a little longer than that. Usually better to wait a year or so after release anyway - when a desirable model first comes out, you won't get much discount, but leave it for a year and they'll haggle happily.

There's nothing really special about it though - they wouldn't have had to tool up specially for it as it's all common parts. I know they had the pickups "specially wound", but they were originally stock Fender and DiMarzios anyway. I had a set of the CS '69s in an alder body, maple board Strat for quite a while and they nailed the Gilmour sound in every position but bridge.

Riaan

?...Yep, I'll be saving much, much longer than two months that's for sure. But I can also imagine that a signature model may turn out to be a huge disappointment even though one may be a fan of whoever's signature model it is. After all, the guitar was tailored to suit David Gilmour's preferences, which might not necessarily be comfortable or suitable for other players.

I figure that it's best to assemble my own partscaster, which hopefully over time will become my ideal instrument.

And let's face it, by simply playing on a DG signature strat, I'm definitely not going to sound like him! Not even if I had all his other equipment!

Vintage-Vibe

Hi guys

spoke 2 the boys at Fender - expect 40 to 50 k on one of those - can't recall the exact figure - F*** that !

AlanRatcliffe

F*** that ! indeed - that's still out of line with the US price. I thought Phillip said that they had managed to break from Fender Europe?

Or is that the relic model - which I think is more expensive?