In a fit of outrageous Dark Side powered GAS, I bought a new electric guitar. I know, I know, what's this got to do with the Collings forum. Well, nothing. Although I know there are a few of you pickers out there that go both ways, and I'm excited about the guitar, so I had to post. Hey! At least it's gear this time.

It's got that new fangled Buzz Feiten tuning system, and although the jury is out, it does seem to play pretty well in tune for an electric guitar. It sounds mostly like a really good strat plus some humbucker type sounds as well. It feels great and open chords do seem more in tune than on most electric guitars.

Pictures here:

http://www.rockerbob.com/anderson/index.html

Kewl! Play that funky music white boy!

Nice Guitar!

Well at least, you have your Colling T shirt on..

I also have a 70's Fender strat given by a friend.. I don't play it much... I don't even have and amp now..

Keith,
I'm glad you're starting to see things as I do, I started with one Tom Anderson and then there were five. The Cobra model is cool but you will soon find the need for a Classic Hollowbody with a Maple neck soon to be followed by one of there Hollow T models. Life is short so don't delay Anderson Gas is a hard thing for a man to resist.
I'm still groovin on the D2H models each with a diffrent sound and wonder what all the Hoopla is about those darn little Collings guitars like the OM or O or even the SJ. I'm glad my local Collings dealer is 75 miles away so I don't have a chance to stumble and fall into that GAS. Everything is going well here so enjoy your new toy.......George

These Tom Anderson electric are are par with Collings for quality. I like my Fenders, but this is a step up. Maybe now I can get funky. Not to worry, the Collings will not be neglected. The other electrics might be, but not the Collings. Anyway, it's a great guitar and it does seem to play in tune very well, better than most. Maybe Buzz is on to something, although I can't see what it is by looking at it.

George, good to hear from you. Yeah, I had to do the Anderson thing. You and a local friend both got me hooked on them. I guess it is a Cobra type model, but they don't call it that on the website or the store where I bought it. They call it a hollow drop top. Great guitar, great looks. I went in to the store to see the same model with alder body behind the maple, but I liked this one better with a mahogany body under the maple top. It's nice and light but sounds and feels very solid. I'm glad to hear you are doing well. We are well here also, and I'm a happy camper today.

You do need and OM or 000. They are sweeter than dreads and sometimes just as big sounding. You might need two. :-)

How would you describe the sound - Strat, Les Paul, or something different? In which ways specifically is it a step up from a Fender? Seems like a cool guitar.

There are a variety of sounds available, as with most electric guitars, but this one is setup to sound like a strat. They also make guitars with a 2-humbucker pickup configuration that probably leans more toward the Les Paul sound. Actually, all three of the pickups on this guitar are humbuckers and the little switch splits the coils to single on all three. The front 2 sound like slightly warmer single coils even in humbucker mode and the split mode is clean and bright. The bridge pickup sounds like a humbucker in humbucker mode, but gets that Fender twang in split mode, so there some of both the Fender and the Gibson sound.

The pickups are all made by Anderson at their shop. They sound great! The 2 front single coil looking (but really humbuckers) really sound like single coils in humbucker mode and they are totally noise free. In single coil mode I can hear a bit of the noise come back, not much, but expected with any single coil.

Les Pauls are mahogany with a maple top, just like this guitar, so it has perhaps a thicker sound than the typical alder used on strats. Also, the hollow chambers make the guitar light, Lesters are too heavy, and add to the tone.

I guess to me many of the same things I see in Collings acoustic I see in these electrics. The neck is fabulous. I was playing faster and cleaner than ever last night. There is a responsiveness that reminds me of Collings. The notes just seem to flow out with a minimum of effort, but you can spank it and it still sounds great. The low bass notes have more clarity and definition than my other electrics. Clean or massive overdrive, I can still get well defined low notes. It is better in tune than std electric guitars, whether due to just precise building or the Buzz Feiten system, or both. Where I really notice this is playing standard first position open chords. These are usually very hard to make sound in tune on electric guitar but are great on the Anderson. I was thrashing out some rhythm parts last night and ALL the chords sound in tune.

Then, like Collings, great woods and hardware combined with flawless fit and finish. The setup is great right out of the box, although the store might have set it up, I don't know. The low E at the nut might be a little high, but I'll wait a little while before I start doing anything, other than playing it.

So, are they worth the money? Well, as we all know, once you get to a certain level of quality every incremental improvement cost lots of money. Is it that much better than a Fender? Well, I like strats and teles. I always have and still do. Does the Anderson blow them out of the water? Yes, but in the same, sometimes subtle, way that a Collings blows away a nice Martin. I have a couple great Martins. Great guitars and I love them. In my opinion the Collings is better. Same thing here. I have really good "classic" electric guitars, strats, tele, les paul, es335, SG, but the Anderson has something special. What the French call a certain "I don't know what".

Don't get too much sticker shock on the retail price. They discount better than Collings.

Sounds like a really great guitar. Are these sold direct or through dealers? What's the sticker price and what % of that should we actually expect to pay?

Andersons.......sweet

I have to admit, I've been on the dark side also for about a month...messing around with my electics and amps.

Ooh the G.A.S pains..

Glad your enjoying the axe Keith.

I sold all my electrics- the awesome Broadcaster "Relic", the extremely versatile "Keef"-ized Tele, the cool '46 Gibson ES-125, and all my amps- the '64 Princeton, '75 Musicmaster Bass, and '75 Twin (w/ JBL's). All that's left is the B-Bender "Muttcaster" and the '57 Tweed champ, which now live in the closet, but neither of which I'll ever sell.

And I got a banjo.

Bryan Kimsey
http://www.bryankimsey.com

Anderson's are cool, although my last electric GAS was for PRS. Still like drooling over their catalogs.

Haven't had an electric for a couple of years now (at least). My playing styles were too incompatible to be tolerable at either one, so I'll just be bad on acoustic guitar.

But I'll beat Bryan, just picked up a banjo-uke this past weekend. Will really irritate folks at the festivals.

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Originally posted by elambo:
Sounds like a really great guitar. Are these sold direct or through dealers? What's the sticker price and what % of that should we actually expect to pay?

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They are sold through dealers. This is a what they have listed in Chicago:

Make'n Music
250 N Artesian Av
Chicago, IL 60612
312 455 1970

I don't know what the prices are across all their products, but the model I bought retails with case for $3579. I paid $2579, almost 30% off. Yeah, I know, that's a lot of money for an electric guitar, but we only live once. And it is better to my judgement than the high end Fender Strats (I have a nice '57 reissue I've owned for 20 years). I saw one Internet site that had something similar for like $2379, but I don't know if all things were equal, and I'd rather buy one I've played from a local dealer whenever possible. As a matter of fact, I have never ordered a guitar sight unseen. I thought sure the maple over alder body would be what I liked best, but maple over mahogany is the one that turned my crank.

I also like the PRS guitars, but they were always too "Les Paul" for me. Not that I don't like Les Pauls, I do and I own a nice Custom, but the strat/tele sound works better for me. The Andersons are the first high end electric I've tried that captured the Fender character. There are many things about PRS I like a lot, but they're not me. Too bad too. They make some real beauties.