Supro 0181118090944 Electric Guitar, Sunburst

Ever since Ford retro-styled the Mustang in 2005, vintage and retro has been coming back. So cool! Absara Audio recently purchased the Supro brand and licensed/commissioned Asian factories to produce modern takes on the vintage models. The Island Series is made in Indonesia, but I've played three copies of the Hampton model, and I have to say they were very consistent, and aside from color, I couldn't tell they were different guitars. There are still a lot of junky Asian guitars on the market, but I've been more and more impressed the past few years with the quality of some guitars built in China and Indonesia. Even with the excellent quality, the $1,200 retail price for the Hampton was too much for me, and I held off until I came across a smoking deal.So what makes the Hampton special? Number one is the gold foil pickups. They look cool and have a full yet articulate sound. And there's pickups with a 5 way switch that lets you get a lot of different tones, from bright and twangy to soulful, vintage cleans. The bridge plus middle and middle plus neck positions are a little spanky, though not as much as a strat-style guitar. What I appreciate is that the string separation and note definition when strumming or doing arpeggios is really great, and the pickups are not as dark as a Les Paul style guitar, but not as bright as a Strat. It has it's own unique tone that's really hard to describe. I'm not a hard rock player, but I noted bridge does better with overdriven and distorted sounds than the other pickups. It's something the guitar can do, but the texture isn't quite as nice as with my G&L ASAT Classic.The neck has a very high quality feel compared to most import models I've played, and for the price, it should. It's a very easy guitar to play, with the exception that if you like to dig into your strings with a flat pick, you can get caught on the middle pickup sometimes. I just learned to play between the pickups. The bridge and tail piece seem to add a bit of metallic twang that gives a vintage flavor.One thing that really annoys me is tone knobs that don't effect the tone much, or only have a subtle effect in the first 15% of the turn, then just muffle the sound. Or knobs that start off so dark you can't brighten the sound. Fortunately, the Hampton can get bright enough that rolling off a little treble helps smooth things out. Or you can roll off a lot for thick jazz solos. That's my kind of tone knob! Very useful.I've always liked single coil tone, but single cutaway looks, but how often do you see Strat pickups on a Les Paul style guitar? So for me, this is the perfect marriage of style and tonal versatility. Definitely a keeper!