With nine different pickup combos, it’s pretty easy to find variations on those classic Gibson sounds as well as tones for settings from Jimmy Nolen funk to creamy classic-rock leads. The Squirming Coils Saturation, clarity, and sustain are the tent poles that Trey Anastasio builds his tone around, and he’s been know to favor PAF-style pickups. Handy amount of musical pickup combinations. As a Danny Gatton nerd, I was pleased to find how easy it was to reach for the master volume knob when I wanted to generate volume swells.Ĭomfortably light. The control setup is fairly standard for split-coil pickups with a pair of toggle switches tucked next to a 3-way pickup selector. Why wouldn’t you want the option for a different sound with the flick of a tiny toggle? And because I regularly move between single-coils and humbuckers myself, I was looking forward to testing out an a guitar that reduced instrument switches in the course of a set. PHRED insists that humbuckers should have a split-coil switch. A peek through the bound f-holes revealed that some extra care could be taken to tidy up the wires and perhaps add some shielding-more on that later. The model we reviewed was stock, but PHRED does offer some upgrades including a brass nut, Seymour Duncan humbuckers, and Schaller M6 tuners. When the guitar arrived the action felt a bit on the high side for me, but it was nothing a quick truss-rod tweak couldn’t fix. The 24-fret neck, 25.5” scale, and 1 11/16” nut give the guitar a spacious Gibson-like feel, and the extra fret preparation performed once the Asia-built DockStar arrives stateside really shows. The neck pickup has a unique roundness-evoking tones somewhere between Larry Carlton and B.B. In general, the build quality, look, and feel of the DockStar was in line with other similarly priced semi-hollow models.
But that little extra little bit of forward lean in the body profile gives the guitar more balance when wearing it. Overall, the body shape is a bit more offset than say, a Fender Starcaster, which it resembles to a degree. The hollow mahogany body is covered by flame maple veneer on both the top and back that gives the guitar an expensive vibe and look. It’s incredibly light and can almost feel like a toy at times. The DockStar is also a potential lifesaver if you dread the notion of slinging a Les Paul through yet another four-hour gig. It’s easy to forget how smooth and welcoming a set-neck design can feel when heading into the upper frets, but the DockStar’s feels great. The design elements that PHRED takes from Languedoc and other offset models flow together like a raging “Scarlet Begonias” from ’77. But Los Angeles-based PHRED Instruments, which has a strong affinity for the music and instruments of the Grateful Dead and Phish, builds guitars inspired by rarities like Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” and Anastasio’s own Languedoc, which is the primary influence on the DockStar Flame Maple reviewed here. That gets a whole lot harder when the instruments in question are specialized or one-of-a-kind custom instruments like Trey Anastasio’s hard-to-find Paul Languedoc creations. Too-cool-for-school players may be reluctant to admit it, but we love to play the guitars our heroes play.
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