And as I tuned the guitar, I noticed an impressive amount of vibration transferring to my body-and that’s usually the sign of well-built instrument. Judging by the Superhawk Deluxe's lively unplugged resonance, G&L put a lot of thought and effort into making the guitar sustain as much as possible. Rolled-off tones with a simple flip of a switch. Use independent tone controls to move from treble-heavy to bassier, Penchant for a straightforward controls, but it limits those who like to This setup works wonderfully for players who share Cantrell's Position, and a lower-output '59 model is situated in the neck position.īoth are controlled with a volume knob, a tone knob, and a 3-way Unit resonate more like a one-piece saddle.Ī Seymour Duncan JB, long a favorite of Cantrell's, sits in the bridge Saddle Lock bridge, which enhances sustain by locking the saddlesĪgainst each other, eliminating undesirable vibration and making the Mainstay on the Rampage has been replaced with G&L's non-floating No-nonsense approach: The floating Kahler bridge that used to be a Sense that the Superhawk Deluxe's hardware and pickups follow a … the Superhawk's bridge pickup can easily cover everything from treble-heavy shred to burly, Kyuss-like single-note melodies.Ĭantrell has never been into guitars with excessive frills, so it makes Close inspection of the fit, finish, and build quality revealed no construction flaws or cut corners. While the darker areas around the burst and the back of the guitar look jet black from a distance, shining a light on them reveals deep purple shades. Our review model arrived with an eye-catching blueburst finish. Its beefy hard-rock maple neck is bolted to the body and sports a 22-fret ebony fingerboard with Plek-dressed medium-jumbo fretwire. The body is built from soft maple, which is dense enough to make it heavier than, say, a Stratocaster, but not as massive as something like a Norlin-era Les Paul. The basic building blocks of the 25 1/2"-scale Superhawk Deluxe don't deviate much from the Rampage’s. Cantrell's new Superhawk Deluxe has the same dual-humbucker setup as the original Superhawk, but a slightly different bridge configuration, a subdued flamed-maple top (available in transparent blueburst and blackburst finishes), and an even simpler control layout. Eventually, G&L and Cantrell would team up to release his own signature Rampage model, and more recently, a Superhawk reissue built in his honor. Its simple design and rock-solid reliability soon made it Cantrell's go-to guitar. And one of the biggest fans of the Rampage was-and is-Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell, who purchased his first one while working at a music store when the guitar was new. Some of those instruments have since developed cult followings, though. But as the ’80s and its Aqua Net trappings fell out of favor and faded into memory, so too did many of the guitars that were designed for players of that era. It was released in 1984 as a dual-humbucker alternative to the single-humbucker Rampage model, along with the Invader, which came equipped with two single-coils and a bridge humbucker. You can read the whole interview-which can be found in the June 2018 edition of Guitar World-right here.The G&L Superhawk was nearly lost to the ages-specifically, to the mid to late ’80s, when hair metal and shred ruled the arenas of the world. We used that on about three or four songs with a baritone guitar and it sounded ridiculous.” We even had a cigar box amp that Nick bought at the Pike Place Market. “Then we also used all sorts of cool, cleaner amps, like AC30s and Fenders. “There’s always going to be a ton of G&L and Les Pauls with me, and there’s also a lot of my Dave Friedman ‘Double J’ amp that we put out a few years ago,” he continued. You can check the informative video out above.įor Alice in Chains’ as-yet-untitled new album, Cantrell told Guitar World that he “used a lot of the old standard stuff.” In one particularly interesting segment, Cantrell details how Dimebag Darrell-who Cantrell met when he was 19-was responsible for his use of Randall amplifiers early on in Alice in Chains’ career. In the video, Cantrell not only details his guitars, pickups, pedalboard and amplifiers, he often tells viewers how and why he started using them. In the midst of all this though, the band’s guitarist, the great Jerry Cantrell, got together with Sweetwater’s Nick Bowcott (of Grim Reaper fame) to show off his current touring rig. Get an Up Close and Personal Look at Jerry Cantrell's Guitar RigĪlice in Chains are currently on the road, and gearing up for the release of their first new album in five years.
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