Los Angeles
Senior Member
Of all the solid body electrics Guild has made over the years, the 1970's era S-100 is a clear standout. The guitar's legend seems to have only grown over the years. So when Guild decided to reenter the electric guitar market with a line of guitars produced overseas, it's no surprise that the S-100 was on the short list.
When the initial Newark Street collection was announced to such great fanfare and excitement, I was instantly excited to see the inclusion of the S-100 ... and then it took me about 5 seconds to notice all the problems.
What's with the pickups? Where's the phase switch? And are you really only offering it in cherry? Why? So that it would blend in with the starfire reissues? Wrong decade, guys!
Yes, cherry was the second most common S-100 color after Nature Boy, but I don't think it was all that smart of a call to make so many of the NS guitars cherry, and it was definitely a mistake to offer them ONLY in cherry. It takes about two seconds inside of a guitar store to figure out that every electric guitar model from the cheapest to the most expensive is offered in at least 2-3 different colors. In a car lot, the color of the car is often the difference between a sale and no sale, especially if a young person is doing the buying (or at least the choosing).
But the worst of these choices was definitely launching the guitar with the wrong pickups.
RIght off the bat, I was worried that this S-100 was not going to sell. Of all the S-100 fans here at LTG, I can't recall anyone placing an advance order for one of these guitars, in fact the owners roster shows hundreds of S-100's from the 70s and 90's and only 5 2013's owned by LTG members.
Anyway, after the launch, we heard several times from the guys behind the scenes that the NS guitars were NOT intended to be historical reproductions, but more like modern interpretations of classic Guild designs, produced with ear for sound and a focus on affordability. Understanding that, I was willing to give the S-100 a chance.
Eventually, sound clips of the guitar appeared on youtube and various sites around the web, and I was tremendously annoyed that clip after clip only featured the S-100 through a driven amp or distortion box. They'd play some 70's metal riffs and say "so there you have it" and end the video. Something was wrong here. I really needed to know what the guitar's natural sound was with these new pickups. It was clear that the only way for me to find out was to track one down and play it.
A few months later, True Tone in Santa Monica had one on the floor as well as several other guitars in the Newark street line. I got to play many of these guitars both plugged in and unplugged.
In my opinion, just judging it on playabliity and quality of sound, the S-100 was by far the worst guitar in the entire Newark Street line up. After just a few moments playing it unplugged, I could tell that it felt dead and lifeless. Through an amp, it sounded thin and ragged. It didn't sing, it squeeled. It didn't bark like a doberman, it yipped like an poodle. INSTANT PASS.
The guys at True Tone knew that I was a Guild snob, and they knew that I came in that day to demo the NS guitars. and in the end they knew that no matter how much fun I had playing the hollowbodies and the artistocrat, I couldn't get over how terrible the S-100 was. I felt deflated.
It wasn't until months later that I heard that the factory botched the specs for the bridge pickups in the mini humbuckers and it all made sense to me. Would it have made a difference that day? I don't know.
But still, even if they built the pickups to match the 60's mini humbuckers perfectly, I still think that they should not have put them on the S-100! In fact, with the lineup of Newark Street guitars focused entirely on the 50's and 60's, I don't think they should have released the S-100 reissue at all.
If they absolutely HAD to release a solid body with these pickups, the better thing to do in my opinion was to make a modern interpretation of the Thunderbird or perhaps even the Polara. Or maybe an in-between version that had the T-bird shape and mini HBs but with the wiring and pickup selector of the Polara and 70's S-100s. They could have called it the S-150 or something.
In the end, relaunching the S-100 was shamefully mishandled. And it was also a real missed opportunity. If properly built and marketed, this was a chance for so many players to finally know - first hand - what the big deal was about when it came to S-100's.
In the end, it doesn't matter to me if the new S-100s are historically accurate or not. The important thing is to capture the look, the feel and the sound of the good ones from the 70's.
And the one thing Guild MUST do is be certain to never release a guitar until it has truly earned the "GUILD" logo on the headstock.
When the initial Newark Street collection was announced to such great fanfare and excitement, I was instantly excited to see the inclusion of the S-100 ... and then it took me about 5 seconds to notice all the problems.
What's with the pickups? Where's the phase switch? And are you really only offering it in cherry? Why? So that it would blend in with the starfire reissues? Wrong decade, guys!
Yes, cherry was the second most common S-100 color after Nature Boy, but I don't think it was all that smart of a call to make so many of the NS guitars cherry, and it was definitely a mistake to offer them ONLY in cherry. It takes about two seconds inside of a guitar store to figure out that every electric guitar model from the cheapest to the most expensive is offered in at least 2-3 different colors. In a car lot, the color of the car is often the difference between a sale and no sale, especially if a young person is doing the buying (or at least the choosing).
But the worst of these choices was definitely launching the guitar with the wrong pickups.
RIght off the bat, I was worried that this S-100 was not going to sell. Of all the S-100 fans here at LTG, I can't recall anyone placing an advance order for one of these guitars, in fact the owners roster shows hundreds of S-100's from the 70s and 90's and only 5 2013's owned by LTG members.
Anyway, after the launch, we heard several times from the guys behind the scenes that the NS guitars were NOT intended to be historical reproductions, but more like modern interpretations of classic Guild designs, produced with ear for sound and a focus on affordability. Understanding that, I was willing to give the S-100 a chance.
Eventually, sound clips of the guitar appeared on youtube and various sites around the web, and I was tremendously annoyed that clip after clip only featured the S-100 through a driven amp or distortion box. They'd play some 70's metal riffs and say "so there you have it" and end the video. Something was wrong here. I really needed to know what the guitar's natural sound was with these new pickups. It was clear that the only way for me to find out was to track one down and play it.
A few months later, True Tone in Santa Monica had one on the floor as well as several other guitars in the Newark street line. I got to play many of these guitars both plugged in and unplugged.
In my opinion, just judging it on playabliity and quality of sound, the S-100 was by far the worst guitar in the entire Newark Street line up. After just a few moments playing it unplugged, I could tell that it felt dead and lifeless. Through an amp, it sounded thin and ragged. It didn't sing, it squeeled. It didn't bark like a doberman, it yipped like an poodle. INSTANT PASS.
The guys at True Tone knew that I was a Guild snob, and they knew that I came in that day to demo the NS guitars. and in the end they knew that no matter how much fun I had playing the hollowbodies and the artistocrat, I couldn't get over how terrible the S-100 was. I felt deflated.
It wasn't until months later that I heard that the factory botched the specs for the bridge pickups in the mini humbuckers and it all made sense to me. Would it have made a difference that day? I don't know.
But still, even if they built the pickups to match the 60's mini humbuckers perfectly, I still think that they should not have put them on the S-100! In fact, with the lineup of Newark Street guitars focused entirely on the 50's and 60's, I don't think they should have released the S-100 reissue at all.
If they absolutely HAD to release a solid body with these pickups, the better thing to do in my opinion was to make a modern interpretation of the Thunderbird or perhaps even the Polara. Or maybe an in-between version that had the T-bird shape and mini HBs but with the wiring and pickup selector of the Polara and 70's S-100s. They could have called it the S-150 or something.
In the end, relaunching the S-100 was shamefully mishandled. And it was also a real missed opportunity. If properly built and marketed, this was a chance for so many players to finally know - first hand - what the big deal was about when it came to S-100's.
In the end, it doesn't matter to me if the new S-100s are historically accurate or not. The important thing is to capture the look, the feel and the sound of the good ones from the 70's.
And the one thing Guild MUST do is be certain to never release a guitar until it has truly earned the "GUILD" logo on the headstock.
