This week I received my new Suhr S4 after an agonising 4 month wait for it to be built and boy was it worth the wait. I chose to go with the S4 because I wanted a combination of classic Stratocaster looks and tonal capabilities but with a humbucker in the bridge for added versatility. I also wanted a Maple fretboard as I already have 2 Rosewood fretboard guitars, the S4 has a beautiful 1 piece Maple neck with a skunk stripe that is absolutely flawless and it’s 10 – 14″ radius and angled heel joint make it feel almost identical to my Ibanez JS1000 so it is instantly comfortable. The body is comprised of John Suhr’s “holy grail” formula, Basswood body and AAAAA Flame Maple top with an amazing Maple binding that is apparently hand scraped and is so perfect that you can’t feel any difference between the Basswood and the Maple, it is like a smooth piece of glass.

The pickups are Suhr’s flagship Fletcher Landau single coil pickups in the neck and middle position and an Chrome covered high output SSH+ in the bridge which uses the highest grade hand-selected Alnico magnets and premium components. The pickups are controlled with a 5 way selector switch for maximum tonal variation. There is a single tone knob and volume knob, none of these pesky double tone knobs which I find fiddly.

I will be recording a video demo of this guitar in action soon so you can hear just how many tones you can coax out of this classy instrument, in the meantime enjoy the slideshow above of my new pride and joy.

http://suhrguitars.com/