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Washburn N4-SA

"Suzi"

 

This guitar just makes me smile ... I have no shame in saying that.  Thinking back, it was 1990.  My girl (now my Mrs) had just bought her first car, and I was asked to 'pimp it out' with a very low-budget but very awesome sound system, including a couple of hi-fi speakers in the boot (or the trunk, depending on where you're from).  Seriously ... no fuss, no bullshit, just a huge pair of hi-fi speakers, and a portable CD player velcro'd to the dash.  To try it out (after I'd hidden all the wires and shit under the carpets and seats) I grabbed a CD that I KNEW would tear her head off ... Extreme's "Pornograffiti".  Holy shit.  Think back to the opening bars of the album ... the thunder ... the (I suppose) cellos, then Nuno Bettencourt's guitar soaring over all the shit like a spitfire scything through a formation of Messerschmitts. 

 

The guitar that made that noise, of course, was Nuno's Washburn N4 ... a guitar that is clearly very precious to him, and one that also holds a place in my heart, as I'm sure is the case for thousands of guitarists that appreciate Nuno's tone and playing.  The original must be a very, VERY special guitar to have captured his affections for so long, but the rest of us get a chance to get (I suppose) reasonably close to it with one of these beauties.

 

So.  This is a Washburn 'N4', the USA version of Nuno's signature guitar, made in Washburn's Custom Shop, USA.  These days, there are quite a few variants in the Washburn Nuno lineup, but back in the day you either went for an 'N2' (a cheaper but still cool import) or a 'proper' N4 (which was USA made, with all the bells and whistles).  Unlike Nuno's guitar (which is made from poplar) the body on this one is a lovely chunk of swamp ash (two chunks, actually), with a bolt-on maple neck and an excellent ebony fingerboard.  When I say "bolt-on" of course, this is a very odd bolt-on, which uses the 'Stephens Extended Cutaway' neck joint.  The neck is fixed using a curved steel neck plate fixed by five screws in a single arc, leaving the area which is normally occupied by a chunky neck heel completely free of any obstructions, so that you can noodle up at the dusty end of the neck without stretching your delicate pinkies.  It is a great idea, and is presumably protected by a bunch of patents as tight as Uma Thurman's pants.  Teh body si actually pretty tiny compared to a regular strat ... presumably so that it matched the equally tiny frame of Mr Bettencourt.  I can't help but feel that it looks ... maybe ... too small against my 6'2", 200lb frame, but whatever.

 

It is fitted with a German Floyd Rose (although I still had to swap the arm and collar assembly for a new tighter one), and an incredibly loose voluem control.  I'm a fan of low resistance pots, but REALLY? ... this one would move with a stiff breeze.  The pickups are a Bill Lawrence XL500 at the bridge and a Seymour Duncan 59 at the neck.  I looked into replacing the XL500 with the Bill & Becky equivalent (Bill is the real Mr Lawrence, who made the original pickups, and Becky is his Mrs) but the more YouTube videos I watch, the more I'm convinced that there's no bloody difference.  Whatever, the pups sound great as they are. 

 

This one was absolutely pristine when I got it ... seriously, not a single mark or ding.  And it was signed on the rear of the headstock by Nuno when it was for sale at the Music Zoo, New York (see the link that I'll eventually put up!).  As it looked too sterile when it turned up, it was immediately subjected to quite an agressive ageing process, and the pre-requesite 'N4' sticker.  Now ... as this was quite expensive, that first dent hurt quite a lot.  The rest, not so much.  That didn't stop me from feeling like a spoiled child deliberately damaging one of his expensive toys ...which ... I suppose ... was pretty close to the truth.  Interestingly, Washburn now do their own reliced version of the N4 (read "bashed about and mucky"). I've only seen one of them in the flesh, and it looked absolutely bloody awful.  Each to their own I suppose.  To my palate though, this looks the part, and actually looks a little more interesting than Nuno's, given that his si uber-plain poplar, whereas this at least gives a bit of interesting grain structure to entertain you.

 

This is a lovely, lovely player, and is one of my 'go-to' guitars.  It IS very bright indeed ... the combination of the XL500 (a bright pickup) and the swamp ash body gives this a really crisp and piercing bite to it.  Not ice-pick bright, but it certainly helps to remind you that lead guitar occupies a discrete part of the tonal spectrum ... Anyway, this is beautiful, awesome, AND it sounds and plays great.  Fantastic.

 

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