Alex, I am awestruck. Dumbfounded. In love.
How do you manage to make such great guitars?
Nothing I have ever played will match my Z2. I am now beginning to understand
all those "10" ratings on harmony central, and the enthusiasm of great
players like Bobby Simcox.
Not named after that soppy Disney character,
but just because of her sound and look. The combination of the colours
on neck and body are exactly those that you will find on an African
lion. And it has that same kind of powerful, unstoppable, and graceful
look. That's all I will say about it's look. As for the comparison lion/sound
: add a little distortion, and you get that beautiful primeval roaring.
I have tried every pickup setting: all beautiful.
All of my other guitars have 1 or maybe 2 usable sounds. Simba has 6
wonderful and completely different sounds. Those pickups are just amazing.
I can just do anything I want. Total freedom. Yessssss!!!
I have read about people comparing the different
sounds of your guitars to many mainstream "great" guitars. It should
be the other way round. This is a guitar with character, and it's sound
and playability should set the tone for the major builders. I will not
compare it with any of them... None of them even come close to what
Simba has. I could go on and on about the sound, but I do not know the
words needed to express myself correctly. Divine would be one of the
terms to use.
About the sustain: I gave the bridge SD pickup a go
with some distortion. I could play a note, put my guitar down, go out
for pizza, come back and it would still
be ringing.
Then there's playability and feel:
All of the controls are in the right places.
There is no way you will hit one of the mini-switches accidentally while
strumming like a madman, yet they are close at hand. Compare this to
the industry standard: I hit the pickup selector switch about 3 out
of 4 times when playing hard on my other guitars...
No confusing tonecontrol knobs. Just turn the
volume down a little, and it will go all mellow. Lovely.
BIG neck. I first thought that it might give
me a little trouble. No way. It's fast, comfortable, and does not cramp
the hand up in any way. This is the first time I have been able to play
a ballad with simple open chords, without having to squeeze and scrunch
my fingers up close together. Absence of dotmarkers is not a problem
at all. Rock solid too.
The body blends right into the player (Me, and
only me! Hahaaahhhhhaarggggghh!) and the feel of the wood under my hands
is very sensuous. I might state that playing a Zachary might make you
feel like sex is overrated. Maybe you should add parental guidance stickers
to the cases. ;-) Nice case BTW.
I kept the tremolo for last : it is the most
amazing thing I have ever seen. I took advantage of the other guys taking
a little break to cut loose on the tremolo, and to try a few heavy metal
hammer-on pull-off tricks. This thing will not go out of tune. I tried.
Hard. I checked the tuning on a chromatic tuner: perfect. I cannot believe
my eyes and ears. Neither could the other guys in the band when I showed
them.
Thank you for making me such a great guitar Alex.
I will be writing a review on Harmony Central
later on, but usually only do this after having used a guitar for a
few months. Too soon now.
If you have other serious potential buyers in
Belgium : they are welcome to contact me. You can give them my hotmail
address: highlyvolatile@hotmail.com
I'll give them a shining reference, and if they're
really serious, they can come and have a look (but not touch, not yet,
too soon, she's mine, mine alone, my preciousssss! ;-) ).
A Zachary fan forever, David.
