PRESS RELEASE: The Fret-King Super-matic self-tuning guitar, is the first ever guitar to feature the truly outstanding and innovative Wilkinson ATD HT440 self-tuning hardtail guitar bridge.
Built with all the hallmark Fret-King style and attributes, the Super-Matic is a very cool looking beast, cut from matched, two piece centre jointed American Alder, using heritage styling cues to create a subtly nuanced classic double cut body, with cosmetics redolent of the shared history with which we are all so familiar.
The 25.5-inch scale length, 24 fret, Hard Rock Maple neck, with it's classic 'Shallow C' profile, matched to a premium, close grain Indian Rosewood fingerboard with a 10-inch radius, finished off with an immaculate fret job, using single cut, hand crowned medium jumbo nickel silver frets assures precision, comfort and provides a playing experience which can only be described as luxurious.
The Super-matic features a Hum-Single-Hum pickup configuration, with Wilkinson WHHBZ33 offset pole piece 'Zebra' humbuckers, wound to a very authentic recipe and a Wilkinson WHSM 'vintage voiced' single coil middle pickup.
The combination of carefully voiced and balanced pickups, and the signature Wilkinson 'Vari-coil control', (which allows either of the humbuckers to be progressively wound down to single coil), creates an instrument with an exceptionally versatile palette of sounds capable of literally any musical style.
ATD bridge
The Wilkinson ATD self-tuning bridge, which has been under development by Trev and his team at 'Auto Tuning Developments' over many years, is a super low profile, real time electro-mechanical device utilising ultra hi-tech micro gearboxes, designed to retrofit unobtrusively in to a standard Strat vibrato bridge rout, (or similar), with a micro hex pickup, controls small enough not to notice, and an intuitive one touch button controlling all the functions and features of this truly incredible device.
Invisibly incorporating the microprocessor control circuitry, the ATD bridge allows the player, with just one touch of the function button to automatically tune the Super-Matic to standard E-tuning.
Tuning status is confirmed in the hi-visibility display, designed to be viewed whilst playing, and overall tuning is assured with the built in chromatic tuner.
Press the function button again, strum, and let the ATD change the guitars tuning from standard E to open G, or change to DADGAD, then to open D - all in the space of just a few seconds, or recalibrate to five additional 'user created' tuning presets in just a few seconds more.
100 percent usable, 100 percent musical, 100 percent reliable, 100 percent accurate.
Available in either Black or Original Classic Burst, complete with luxury Fret-King carry bag, the ATD loaded Fret-King Super-matic sets a whole new benchmark and opens up a host of new musical possibilities to expand any player's performance horizons, and creativity.
Come and check it out at Summer NAMM, booth number 1436.
UK Retail Recommended Price £1299.00 inc bag. The Fret-King Super-matic ships autumn 2010.
Information taken from official press release, for more visit Fret-King
Submit a press release: email musicradar.pressreleases@futurenet.com
Connect with MusicRadar: via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
Get MusicRadar straight to your inbox: Sign up for the free weekly newsletter
“The response from the collecting community was incredible”: Sell-out Skip Maggiora auction raises more than $2.4 million for music and youth charities, with an O.G. ’54 Strat selling for $300,000
“The spring is the thing… Even better than the 1999 original!”: The Danelectro Spring King reverb is dead, long live the Spring King Junior (smaller, just as splashy)
