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Updated Sunday July 20th  2008

Atlas Custom Handmade Guitars

* ATLAS ULTIMATE MODEL REVIEW *

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Whilst it’s always a little unfair to generalise, we have found by experience that Asian and Far Eastern guitars tend to fall into two categories, cheap reproductions of famous brands that to be frank are well worth avoiding and superbly built hand-made guitars that are as good, if not better, than the famous brands they emulate. So when the Atlas Ultimate arrived we opened the case with a certain degree of trepidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . However, we needn’t have worried.

First impression as the lid opened was one of pleasant surprise as the guitar looked superb with a stunning quilt top that with a different label on the headstock would be in the £3,000+ range, the build quality was the best we have seen for a long time. With the likes of Gibson Customs struggling over the last decade to live up to their image it is an ideal time for an Asian manufacturer to get noticed and show their skills at producing top quality guitars at a sensible price and Atlas Handmade Guitars have certainly managed to do just that. There are of course some aspects of the Ultimate that come in for criticism which we’ll get to later in the review but this is hardly surprising as we have been spoilt over the years by specialising in top end guitars and therefore set our standards very high but it has to be said that even they are hardly ever perfect.  The ‘ideal’ guitar is after all a very personal choice so it’s difficult to set an exact standard but it is possible none the less to assess whether the guitar is good value or not compared to high end Gibson’s and for that matter PRS who it has to be said have achieved consistent levels of high quality finish for many years even if the playability does vary and isn’t a patch on their pre-factory Santana 1 for instance.

It is much easier for Asian and Far Eastern manufacturers to keep their prices down for all the obvious reasons but it still takes a high degree of skill and dedication to produce consistency across the range and we have seen on many occasions in the past that when a product becomes really successful and factory techniques are employed to cope with demand the quality almost always drops. Whether this will happen to Atlas guitars or not remains to be seen but in their favor is the fact that they have been building top quality instruments for many years and it certainly shows in their build quality which has that hand built feel that is almost impossible to replicate from a production line.

Ultimate Spec :

Hollow body

Grade 5a Maple Quilt top

Grade 4a Flame Maple back

Flame Maple neck

Masked Maple binding

Ebony fingerboard with Abalone shell inlays

Jumbo Frets

Bone nut

Gold Schaller Tuners

Gold stop and tail bridge

Hand-wound X1 neck and X2 bridge pickups with Gold covers.

Quality fitted and lined locking case

Price £1295

Manufacturer : Atlas Handmade Custom Guitars. Thailand

Sole UK Distributor : Paul Cummings

Contact details : www.atlas-customguitars.com

 The overall finish as already stated is just excellent and the quality of the base materials leaves many much more expensive guitars for dead. As far as appearance goes it is pretty much faultless and you would have to go a long way to find another guitar in this price range that could even come close. Looks aren’t everything of course but it’s a good place to start and in all honesty this is a stunning looking guitar.

So how does it play ?

The factory set up straight from the case was for us a little too high. As with most manufacturers Atlas seem to have erred on the side of safety as it’s obviously far easier for the buyer to lower the action than try to raise it to their preferred style but the adjustment was easy enough even though we had to re-cut the bone nut to set the strings. One big advantage was the Gibson style bridge and the fact that the neck itself was set to perfection. If you are not use to doing your own set up however we’d suggest that you took it to a professional to cut the nut if necessary as you have to be very careful not to overdo it. The hand-wound pickups obviously had to be adjusted to cope with lowering the action and we found that angling them downwards towards the base strings greatly improved the overall balance as the bass tended to drown out the top three. The guitar was played through a Marshall R100 head and a twin bank of 4x4’s without any effects programs and performed well both clean and distorted with none of the usual feedback normally associated with hollow bodies when the gain is cranked up. The overall sound is almost classic jazz style but fairly flexible with a reasonable range from the pots. Personally I did find the response a little muddy but in all fairness my own style is a little odd as I don’t use a pick and the tone from bare fingers does vary a great deal depending on what my hands have been doing etc and if played with a pick the harsher plastic rather than skin produced a much better tone particularly when a medium to heavy grade pick was used. This guitar is such good value however that even if you had your own favorite pickups installed it would still be a far better buy than a high end Gibson, PRS or custom shop Fender leaving you a great deal of money better off. We don’t however want to be too harsh here as the Atlas pickups generally performed well but when this guitar is so close to perfection it is easy to find the slightest thing to criticise that would be overlooked in lesser instruments. The ‘D’ shape neck is reminiscent of the 50’s Les Pauls, a touch more generous than the slimmer 60’s trend but is very comfortable with an easy feel, not sticky like most new guitars and the frets, whilst described as Jumbo, are a less heavy than say the usual jumbo Stratocaster gauge.

In summary we have to say that this is one hell of a guitar for the money and easily rates against a modern Gibson or PRS in the £2500+ range and that isn’t an exaggeration. Those of you who have read our reviews before know how difficult we are to please and our overall rating is amongst the highest we have awarded 9/10, which by comparison beats the modern Gibson Custom 335,( not the earlier version), various PRS hollow bodies, anniversary single cut (zebras ) which is one of our favourites and the somewhat lesser Fenders etc.

The sole UK distributors are Paul and Gaynor Cummings, nice genuine people who actually care about who buys the guitars and who go out of their way to match the right instrument to the buyers requirements. When you add all this up and consider the range of options on offer to personalise your guitar, it becomes a very appealing package. In short if you are in the market for a top end branded guitar that costs in excess of £2500+ think very seriously about a guitar from Atlas of Thailand.  This Ultimate range cost just under £1300, and that's really an excellent buy.

Get on the phone to Paul or send an email and get the ball rolling, you won’t regret it.

SM

           Sound clip coming soon & Solid Body review !

Full review, photo's, sound clips & manufacture details coming .