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| The Complete Guitar Guide |
Extracts from "The Complete Guitar Guide" by David Lawrensen, published in 1982 by Virgin Books Ltd.
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Shergold Custom Masquerader
Shergold are Britain's only mass producer of guitars at the present time, Despite having established a generally good reputation, it would be fair to say that they have yet to make the breakthrough into general acceptance, probably due to having some weird cosmetic and styling traits which they appear to be reluctant to change. In some ways the Custom Masquerader goes partly down the path of overcoming these oddities in that it is available with an ash body in place of the normal Shergold body wood, obechi, which is considered far too light for comfort by many players. The rock maple neck is jointed to the body by a method which most people would wrongly identify as plain screw-on or bolt-on. It is a sort of bolt on job but Shergold's method is a definite improvement on the alxity which that description normally implies. It isn't easy to move. Hardware is a mixture of the excellent and the appalling. The machine are Schallers which require little further endorsement. The bridge is a good design of Shergold's own, employing rounded brass saddles, each with full adjustment potential for both string height and intonation setting. The bas news, however, is that Shergold have placed a ridiculous looking moulded black plastic cover over their rather nice bridge. Thankfully this can be removed and disposed of which is just as well as it fulfills no mechanical purpose and merely serves to make the instrument look ghastly and cheap. It isn't helped by the controls, either. These are two pots (black plastic) and three clumpy plastic half slide/half flick switches which act as controllers for the two black plastic cases twin coil pickups. In theory and in practice, these sharp edged switches are a good idea because they offer you a very advanced choice of pickup selection, humbucking or reverse phase or single coil on each pickup! Certainly a great change from the one pickup selector and two pots principle of most other makers. In fact, despite the clumsiness of these controls' appearance, they actually work rather well. The neck is as good as Shergold's necks always are. This means that it all comes with the lowest action of any production guitar around - no fret buzz at all and a superbly well profiled shape. Whether you like it will depend on your taste in neck shapes but you will not be able to fault it on its superb constructional quality. Tonally the instrument isn't bad but overall Shergold's pickups leave quite a lot to be desired. It's amazing that they didn't give these up years ago and bring in Mighty Mites or similar. These don't have too bad a sound and certainly the optional ways of setting them provides for a good wide range of usable sounds - but you can never make it take off and fly like a good Gibson or Fender - it did get quite close though.
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Shergold Marathon Mark II
A frequent criticism of Shergold instruments (although not entirely a justified one) is the manufacturer's use of a body wood known as obechi (sic). This has been mentioned in another review but it bears repetition to say that obechi, whilst it does not seem to render Shergold instruments any less capable of producing decent sustain or tone than guitars made of other woods, feels very light to hold which has proved offputting to some potential customers. Shergold heeded this criticism and have introduced this Mark II version of their enduring Marathon bass, with the body wood of American ash (the same as the Precision). The mark II is thus a heavier guitar to handle, but it is still buy no means as heavy to hold as many other basses on the market. Apparently Shergold refuse to make their instruments unnecessarily heavy, and who can blame them? It merits pointing out, however, that this version of the Marathon feels rather more sensible to hold than the older obechi version. To match the new wood, certain other changes have been made, notably to the body contours to help make the bass more comfortable to play. No rub digging here! As usual, despite having a fairly basic Precision type bridge, the Shergold needed no adjustment whatsoever on arrival. This reviewer maintains that this manufacturer makes the most consistently perfect set-up guitars and basses on the market - this sample was no exception, coming as id did with an almost unbelievable low action and perfect fret height and feel. The rest of the hardware was typical Shergold, those excellent Schaller bass machines and that regrettably awful looking combination of tiny pots for volume and tone. In Use the Shergold plays like a dream. Yet there is something missing in that sound one can only attribute to the weakness in the pickup output which compares rather poorly with the standard which one might from the best of the similarly priced Japanese basses. Having said that, the Shergold would work well with a good amp where any such deficiencies could be coped with at the pre-amp stage. Given that consideration, the sheer playability of the Marathon II, with its new body materials and that phenomenally fast and accurate maple neck, should make it a class winner.
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Shergold Modulator Six String
Personally this reviewer rather tends to prefer Shergold's basses to their guitars - but how does that affect something as weird and wonderful as a six string bass? With the Modulator we're back with Shergold's unique use of obechi wood, a very lightweight type which many feel insubstantial compared to more normal woods such as mahogany or maple. Be that as it may, Shergold claim that it is technically as good a wood (better in some respects), and they have tended to stick to their guns with it. All the same, pick up a Modulator Six and you're in for a surprise when you feel the weight. The body isn't all obechi, however, as it is a laminate with a core of maple and three strips of mahogany. The neck is pure Canadian solid rock maple which is rigidly joined to the body by Shergold's unique dovetailed bolt joint. Overall the guitar is beautifully constructed and finished with that setting up which wins Shergold a personal award as being the best in the business - the action was unbelievably low, and it played with no buzzes at all. Machines on the six stringer are Schallers, and the bridge is basically a Precision type which could, possibly have been just a shade more substantial although there are no real complaints about it. Control gear is optional in module form (hence Modulator). There are many different ways of running the two 16-pole pickups and the choice of which of the many different plug-in modules you use is up to you. They offer either/or pickup, volume and tone (M.1), Phase (M.2), Coil Taps (M.3), Stereo (M.4), Quad (M.5) and Active Boost (M.6). Prices of the plug-in modules are very reasonable indeed. The bass comes this the basic No. 1 module. Obviously, carrying six strings, the bass has a wide neck compared to a normal bass, but not so much so that it's hard to play. Once you get used to the odd feel and the way the runs across the neck differ from those normally played on four strings, it becomes easy to handle. Bass chords come out clean and are easy to play, and the tendancy for the tonality to fall to pieces as you play across the neck is offset by the custom made set of Picato strings which come with the bass (and which that make offers as standard after much development work with Shergold). Normal guitar players will probably feel immediately at home with this Shergold. Given a good, modern bass amp with a strong speaker (to take the chords) and plenty of Eq control, it should be perfectly usable on stage. Certainly this is the best six string bass this reviewer has ever played, with a good sound and well made feel. Worth experimenting with if you fancy an odd sound.
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