Comins GCS-1ES Semi-Hollow, Vintage Blonde

Description

"A while back, I was given the opportunity to visit and work closely with a South Korean guitar manufacturing facility. Arriving not knowing what to expect, I quickly learned that this was a team of dedicated craftspeople, many of them having decades of experience in instrument building. And I came to see that given a good design, they were quite capable of producing some great sounding instruments with a high degree of structural integrity.

In time, they graciously agreed to work with me to produce a new line of guitars. These are original designs being build to my specifications with close collaboration. Choosing from their pallet of available materials, I've selected only components that meet a high standard of tone, stability, and consistency. Critical specifications are adhered to at every step along with way, and the coup de grace is that I'm personally ensuring that every instrument receives a precision setup before going to its final destination. I'm confident these instruments will exceed your expectations for performance and value." - Bill Comins

Players who favor the versatility of semi-hollow body guitars but find most lacking a certain refinement will love what Bill has achieved with the GCS-1ES model. With a spruce top and ebony fingerboard, the 1ES presents as a slightly more sophisticated version of a semi-hollow (which are typically laminate maple), perfect for players who want a warmer, fatter tone - perfect for blues and jazz gigs. 

The build quality is very high and setup feels great. The neck carve is exactly what you'd want from a great vintage semi-hollow. Which is to say, it's the perfect middle ground between a slim/fast carve and a chunkier/vintage style carve. 

Plugged in the 1ES delivers on its promise. The tones are warm and fat which made jazz-stylings a no brainer. While this guitar can go in that direction with ease, it never gets muddy and we had a blast dipping into bluesier/grittier tones. As an added bonus, you can split the humbuckers into single coils via a push/pull tone control. This will allow you to get further into other genres - country, pop, rock, etc...without having to lug several guitars to the gig. Nice! 

All in all? This is an incredibly cool guitar that defies many of the stereotypes that accompany some "import guitars". For our money, you'd be hard pressed to find a better guitar in this price range (and higher!). Well done, Bill! Priced with hardshell case.