Purchased from: Manufacturer
Street Price: $2,100 USD with case + shipping
About:
HiStrung is the American manufacturer of hand-crafted octave
guitars by master luthier Frank Pine.
This Octave Junior features a solid one-piece Honduran
mahogany body with a tortoise style single-ply pickguard leading to a one-piece
Honduran mahogany neck dressed with a 22 fret rosewood fingerboard at
a 15.5” fret scale length featuring cellulose nitrate dot fingerboard
inlays ending with a bone nut and a nitrocellulose lacquer finish with
overall dimensions of 28” L X 10.5” W (at lower bout)
Hardware:
Kluson Deluxe 3-in-a-line tuners, Pigtail lightweight
aluminum wraparound tailpiece.
Electronics:
One Single Lindy-Fralin P-90 pickup in the bridge position
with (1) tone (1) volume knob controlling audio taper pots with paper-in-oil
.022 capacitors.
Sound
Amp Used:
Bogner Alchemist 2 x 12
Cable:
Intex
Single Pickup:
A bright full round tone you would expect from a vintage
p-90 without the 60 cycle hum. Very clean and crisp
with excellent note clarity.
Action, Fit & Finish:
The action was low without buzz, and the intonation was dead
on. The nitrocellulose lacquer finish was beautiful. The guitar felt
like it was built with care and attention to detail.
Reliability & Durability:
The guitar is well built. There was no pick-up hum or
crackles from the electronics--all knobs and hardware installed snug and
proper.
Impression:
My first impression was the wrong impression.
As I was visiting the 'My Les Paul" forum booth at the Bee 3 Vintage
guitar show on November 10th, I noticed the HiStrung guitar and my first
thought was that it was meant for a child, as my son will be five years old
this year and has guitars that resemble this. After speaking with Frank
Pine, the luthier behind HiStrung, I was quick to learn that this was not
a toy for a child but an octave guitar for big people. What Frank has done is
taken the familiar design of a LP Jr. and shrunk it down using the
same precision and attention to detail with only the highest quality
of parts as he would if he was making a traditionally sized
guitar. So now that I knew that this was not a toy for a child but a toy
for me, I wanted to know in what application I could use
it. Basically, this guitar is tuned to EADGBE, just a full octave
higher giving it a 6 string ukulele/mandolin
on steroids feel.
Now that I understood the concept behind the guitar I needed
to try it. Frank and I wondered over to the Local Music Gear Magazine booth and
I plugged her into the Bonger. It took a few minutes to get
used to, but within no time my fingers were dancing on her fingerboard all the
way up to the 22nd fret. This was a blast to play and I didn't want to give her
back. I have used a ukulele in the studio before to get that "I want
to hug the world and save stuff" feel in a song, but this was much cooler.
Everything you can do with a traditional sized guitar you can do with
the HiStrung including overdrive and effects that would make
a ukulele or mandolin sound like crap.
What I would change:
I would add a Graph Tech piezeo bridge to get
that ukulele/mandolin acoustic sound if needed.
My advice:
If you are a ukulele/ mandolin player or you just
want an instrument that will give you a little
something different, you should play a HiStrung.
