STOAKES’ GEAR TALK – HAGSTROM PAT SMEAR SIGNATURE
When the Pat Smear signature guitar arrived last week, I was instantly impressed at just how good this Hagstrom looked. With its pearl block inlays on the frets and its cream binding, this is one hell of a good looking guitar. Even if it sounded half as good as it looked, I was in for a treat.
Hagstrom aren’t a guitar brand that I was overly familiar with, but after a little bit of digging I discovered that this Swedish brand was steeped in history. Notable Hagstrom players have included Elvis Presley, Joe Walsh, Ginger Wildheart and Dweezil Zappa. And of course, Foo Fighters, Nirvana and Germs guitarist, Pat Smear.
Everything about this guitar is focussed on live gigging and making that experience as easy as possible. It has a raised scratch plate and the toggle switch is set at an angle, which makes it easier to switch between pickups mid song as you are strumming. The input jack is quite tight too, ensuring that you can’t accidentally step on your guitar lead and pull it out mid song. The guitar comes with two gorgeous sounding AlNico 58 Humbuckers and they really do pack a punch. The guitar arrived perfectly set up too, with a nice low action, making playing the thing a dream. It came equipped with 10 gauge strings, so it’s not a shredders guitar by any stretch of the imagination, I would say it would be more suited to a rhythm player, or at least someone who doesn’t want to shred lightening fast solos all the time.
The body is solid mahogany and it has a custom carved maple top with a maple neck. It also has Hagstrom machine heads with a stop tail piece with brass string blocks and a Tune –O – Matic roller bridge. Basically, you can absolutely hammer this guitar for hours and it will stay in tune! The Resonator finger board also means you get sustain a plenty.
So, how does it play. After plugging it in, the tone from both the bridge and the neck pickups were great, I thought the neck pick up had a slightly thicker sound, but playing it clean, there wasn’t a lot in it. The big noticeable difference came when I added a bit of overdrive. Then the difference was clear, the neck pick up produced this warm, fuzzy dirty blues sound whereas the bridge was all out classic rock distortion.
This is a remarkable guitar and unlike other signature models, I like the fact that you can tailor your own sound with this. I’ve played a few other signature guitars over the years and whatever you do, you end up sounding like the artist in question. Not so with the Pat Smear signature. Yes, you can make a Foo Fighters sound, but the guitar is equally suited to blues, rock and even Sabbath esque heavy metal.
I have had it now for just over a week and I have to say, I couldn’t fault it. This guitar is a true workhorse. It is a great rock and roll guitar, but as I mentioned earlier it also plays dirty blues great and crank the distortion up a little more and you’ve got yourself a good metal axe too. Would I buy it? Absolutely, this guitar is fantastic, if you’re looking for a double cut, SG type shape but don’t want to go for the obvious, then this is the perfect choice. I am a little bit in love and in all honesty, I will be very sad to see it go back!
Specs:
- Body Material: Mahogany
- Top: Custom Carved Maple
- Neck Material: Mahogany
- Neck Joint: Set Neck
- Trussrod: H-Expander™
- Fingerboard/Nut Material: Resinator™
- Position Marks: Hagstrom Pearl Block Inlay
- Fretboard Radius: 15“
- Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo
- Scale Length: 24,75“ / 628 mm
- Nut: Graph Tech™ Black Tusq XL
- Nut Width: 43 mm
- Pickups: 2 x Hagstrom Custom 58 AlNiCo
- Pickup Selector: 3-Way Toggle Switch
- Controls: 2x Volume 2x Tone
- Tuning Keys: Hagstrom 18:1 Die Cast
- Bridge: Long Travel Tune-O-Matic Roller Bridge
- Stoptail: Hagstrom Stop Tailpiece with Brass String Blocks
- String Setup 10-46 – .010, .013, .017, .026, .036, .046
S.R.P: £855.00
