"SOUTHIE" 2018 Echopark Redwood Southsider Made in Detroit Another Echopark masterpiece. The ancient Redwood is astonishing and you will hear it and feel it right away. This is a rock n roll guitar, not a jazz box. Probably my #1 favorite and best sounding guitar i've ever owned. It's a superior musical instrument. Some Southsiders are lightweight and ultimately real jazz guitars, this is absolutely not. This is like a real 59 LP but better. You just get way more of a bell like quality, more complexity. The Redwood is infinitely better than maple, at least as far as being robust. The last thing we want is a guitar that sounds like a Les Paul. I think ultimately the defining characteristic of this guitar is the top piece. Brazilian Rosewood is amazing, Walnut is amazing and Redwood is amazing. But there are very many variances and grades of wood. This builder's number one skill is not only in finding the impossible, it's knowing what to do with it. It's an incredible skill that most boutique builders seem to lack. Redwood is not an easy wood to work with. It produces a glorious sound. I have played this guitar for hundreds of hours. Usually frets last me a year at best. The Southsider here recently received a full $750 service, including fret level and thorough top level set up by Woodsongs Lutherie, the best in the business, exceptional attention to detail. Woodsongs is currently booked a year out. Come to think of it, there's two guitars of mine that have been there well over a year. Extremely in demand luthiers. This recent work includes thorough measurements by a schooled, skilled high-level luthier, who does repairs at the highest level. (For instance, Jonathan recently fully restored a crushed old Byrdland, which took a year tp fox and was painstaking, extremely expensive laborious and complicated). One look at my website, and you can see that I only sell the best guitars. I keep the beaters and junk. The good stuff, the irreplaceable legendary stuff, I sell it. To me this guitar, along with his Crow, Explorer and V are 9.6 or 9.7 out of 10 guitars, with 10 being impossible. They are as good or better than anything I've ever played. This Southsider is particularly special and singular, with it's bell like richness. Talk about being able to do anything, any style of music - one could play a Metallica show with this guitar, and you could play Carnegie Hall in a Jazz band or Symphony. You could play an X show, or the highest level blues. It's unrivaled level of playability and tone happening here, it's astonishing. This is the best playing guitar I own, up and down the neck. This currently has the best fret job of any guitar I own. Guitar came from the previous owner with the wrong size bridge (Gotoh), which was not fully intonatable with this guitar. New bridge is an aged Tonepros, aged by Jonathan at Woodsongs. New switchcraft selector switch. Many hours went into the frets. Guitar is better than new, perfect and has zero issues. Service receipt included in sale. This guitar has changed hands twice, and now at high & dry elevation a few frets needed to be reglued, which is not uncommon. The two previous owners both loved the guitar, and have publically stated so, but in my opinion it was never set up properly, (which is the case 95% of the time we get a guitar in), as most people have no clue what they're doing. I also I think it was just too much guitar for them. This will be too much guitar for most people, as a Bentley Continental or Ferrari FF is too much car for most people. This guitar can only be compared to the best of the best. It's a magical hand made guitar. These sold for $12K+ depending on options. Currently well over a 2 year wait. I really like that this guitar has a traditional LP style bridge, as I have so many other guitars with the amazing brass harpform tailpiece. This is the only guitar I have with a tune o matic style bridge, so I dig it, and it makes it pure rock n roll. I am most grateful that it does not have a bigsby, as they are always a nightmare. A huge part of the overall personality of the guitar is the bridge selection. So if it had a harpform tailpiece, it'd have squishy dynamic tone, if it had a bigsby it'd be out of tune and lame. So here you get great intonation and great stability and attack. So I feel with this bridge style you get the most out of the guitar. There's a lot of tension on the strings, like with a Les Paul, which differs greatly from a ES tailpiece style guitar. Only a few of these have been made. This Southsider was originally sold by Chicago Music Exchange to an Echopark superfan and known guitar collector. I believe he had serious health issues. All CME paperwork is included, as well as the COA and Echopark build sheet. The Echopark Southsider has the vibe of something very old, established, been around awhile. Very old AAAAA wood. You will feel it. Like all his designs, doesn't have that weird modern off-putting prototype vibe that almost every other boutique guitar has. Masterpiece design. I have nothing to criticize. It's just a thing of beauty. If it was possible I'd buy 5 of these guitars in different colors and configurations. This is the flagship model. The guitar plays itself and the hand carved neck shape is perfect. The fretboard radius is nice and flat so it's very comfortable. When I got this guitar, as with most guitars, all the settings were incorrect (to each his own I suppose). After adjusting the truss rod, bridge and saddles man did this thing loosen up and just reveal itself as extraordinary. This is commonplace as most the high end guitars we get need adjustment. Nut height is perfect, nut slots are perfect. The action, easy of playability is literally as good as it can get. Guitar literally feels like a single piece of wood. Immensely satisfying and otherworldly to play. It literally feels like a single piece of wood. Extra extra extra feeling of singularity, cannot emphasize this enough. Guitars like these don't often come up for sale, they used to, but the Echopark collectors typically snag them up. This is a superior musical instrument, capable of much more than your average guitar. I feel privileged to have spent time with this guitar. His highest level model, and it sounds how it looks. Southsiders can vary greatly. I'd have to say this is a more so pure heavy duty rock n roll guitar, this is not a jazz box guitar like some of the other ones. Complete stability. Tuners like butter. Like a Gibson married with a Gretsch? Not at all. Completely it's own thing. More robust, more balls. Bigger, thicker, manlier. Guitar is in a league of it's own. Neither Gretsch nor Gibson make guitars like this, not even close. Hard to believe how much tone and feel you were missing out on. Massive sounding, this guitar is full bodied, three dimensional, and has a bell-like musical bright top end. It has a richness and robustness that can only occur in a guitar this physically substantial. Thick body, very thick ancient sinker Redwood top, thick binding. The binding thickness matches the Redwood top thickness. Overall physically thick guitar. Like with the Crow model, extreme depth and weight to the notes. Way more overtones than you're used to. Truly beautiful sounding, so musical and grand, three dimensional. Sounds like the best old Gibson, but with quite a bit more sonic information, and certainly more frequency response. You get these big, heavy, thick robust notes with a sweet sparkle on top. Has a high level of articulation, but not too much, just the right amount. Has more articulation than your typical high-end Echopark. So that is really saying something. Stand-out tone & performance. Big guitars sound bigger. Thick and yet glassy. Delicate but heavy. Like a good hifi, the notes just have more sonic information, and a wider frequency response. I recently just got some YG Acoustics ANAT III hifi speakers, which were $119,000 new 10 years ago and current version over $200,000. This guitar reminds me of that kinds of musicality. This guitar is not a little better, it's a lot better. A super sweet sounding guitar, high fidelity with balls, the way it should be. No issues or flaws. Tremendous finish & styling. Avant garde shape. Blows Gibson & Gretsch custom shop of the water. It's the wood. Neck is a 1950's D neck, spot on. You could say 1958, you could say 1959. More reminiscent of what considered the classic 1959. It's just dead on, or better, and everyone who plays this guitar comments on the neck, without fail. Neck carving is a high artform, and neck carving is Gabe Currie's specialty. This neck is not a signature huge 38>59 Echopark neck, it’s very reminiscent of a classic, traditional to-die-for neck shape. This is the classic large/medium late 1950's D shape, hand carved by one of the best in the world. He truly makes the best necks, with such awesome and subtle curves to match the hand. My favorite thing about Echopark feel is a builder who understands the curvature of the human hand who hand carves no two the same. He never builds the same guitar twice. This is not the full baseball bat neck, but it is the bigger, thicker sort of 59 LP D shape. There's nothing worse than a symmetrical machine made neck, which misses the point entirely. Most guitars out there miss the point, with necks that are shaped too symmetrically. Unlike 99% out there, this entire guitar is hand carved w/out the use of high tech tools or kilns. The words handmade and handcrafted have been used and abused, to the point of losing all meaning. Most people simply do not know what hand made means. Anyone can get wood, outsource CNC and put a guitar together. This is the real deal. Has my personal favorite Arcane pickup in the bridge, the Echotron. Has an Echopark Gold Coil single coil in the neck (this one made by Arcane; the original Gold Coil, which always was and is the intellectual property of Echopark, not Arcane). The pickup options are limitless. This phenomenal guitar provides a baseline for a lifetime of exploring with pickup options. It sounds so good I can't imagine changing pickups. For me, the best modern neck pickup of all time is this Gold Coil. I own at least 10 of them. The high end handcrafted Echoparks are becoming rarer as collectors are not willing to let them go. If you have a high end handmade Echopark please contact me and I will buy it. You will find many people taking these guitars to the grave. They are irreplaceable. I have tried buying back, numerous times, case study guitars, from people I sold them to. I can say in my 30 years of wrenching, buying & selling, that the only guitars I have regretted selling were Echopark Case Study guitars. I have never regretted selling a vintage guitar. Top Material: Hand-Carved Ancient Sinker Redwood 1000-2000 years old Body Material: Chambered old growth air dried Mahogany w/Red Maple Center Body Color: Old World Sunburst Body Finish: Nitro Lacquer Top Carve: Traditional Medium Bell Neck Wood: Old Stock Mahogany Full Tenon Neck Finish: Nitro Lacquer Neck Profile: 59 D Fingerboard Material: Indian Rosewood Fingerboard Inlays: Mother-of-Pearl Dots Frets: Jescar Jumbo Hardware Plating: Nickel Bridge: Tonepros ABR Bridge Tailpiece: Pigtail Neck Pickup: Arcane Gold Coil stamped Echopark Bridge Pickup: Arcane Echotron stamped Echopark Tuners: Grover Pre-War Open Back 18:1 Pots: CTS 500K Long Shaft Caps: PIO Tone Cap .033-.047 Selector Switch: Switchcraft 3-Way Pickguard: Tortoise Nitrate Case: G&G Hardshell Case Included: Certificate of Authenticity, Build sheet, Chicago Music Exchange sales card to original owner echoparkinstruments.com/pages/Southsider
