Arriving from Austria with a nice setup, the
action has remained low and buzz free for the
weeks we’ve used this guitar as a test instrument
for reviewing amps and effects. The neck
has a slick satin finish (the rear of the peghead
is glossy, however) and the wide-ish 10"-radius
fretboard sports 22 beautifully crowned frets and
abalone position dots. Slightly bothersome is how
the forward bolt on the treble side of the neck
joint presses into your hand when you’re playing
high on the neck, but this is a minor thing
that could be fixed by recessing the bolt head a
little deeper into the wood. A beefy Wilkinson
bridge provides the vibrato action, and between
it and the self-lubricating nut, the strings come
back to pitch reliably when you release the bar.
The Doublewing’s pickups are Strat sized,
and sport staggered polepieces. Coupled through
a 5-way selector to Volume and Tone controls,
they provide the familiar bright sounds with
nice cluckiness in the dual-pickup positions.
Compared to a new Fender Eric Johnson Signature
Strat, the Doublewing Standard sounds a
little browner overall. It offers warm neck-pickup
sounds and gives up a fat, twangy Texas blues
vibe from the middle position. Through a gainedup
amp or pedal the bridge pickup kicks out
clear, meaty overdrive sounds when given just
a touch of reduction from the well-voiced Tone
control. Well equipped to cover a lot of bases,
the Doublewing Standard would be at home
doing clean jazz or blues, or chunking out heavy
riffs with a hard rock band. A cool alternative
choice for those who seek to sling something
different, the Doublewing Standard brings a
Euro twist to the single-coil theme.