How to choose a guitar? The easiest way is to go to some shops and try out a couple in each (any more than 3 can become confusing). What about when you have a pretty good idea of what you like already.

17 years ago I spent 18 months looking for a replacement for my Strat. I came away with a Jackson Soloist that is still the best fit for all my needs. However, there are some things I don’t like.

1/ Floyd Rose Bridge. These cost about £215. So I definitely paid for something I didn’t want. It’s now completely disabled, having two blocks of wood filling the trem cavity.

2/ I’m not too wild about rosewood fingerboards. There is no problem as such but my nails gouge out tiny bits *, and over the years it shows. I like ebony. Ebony is nail proof.

(* my string bends pull, rather than push, bringing the nail in contact with the fret material. This sort of thing occurs when you don’t take guitar lessons)

3/ The image of a metal guitar doesn’t bother me. I use it for what I want to play and it delivers with aplomb. It does confuse the public sometimes though. But I don’t particularly care for its shape or colour (black).

When looking for another gigging guitar, I really wanted something a little different. Certainly not to replace the soloist, but serve as back-up. Also, sometimes the punters get confused when they see a ‘metal’ guitar used in a ska & soul band (snigger…chortle….).

Fenders? I love the Fender sound more than any solid bodies. I can’t get on with those tight radius narrow necks though; and I have really, really tried. Flatter frets are more solo friendly.

Gibsons? You bet. But they have short (24.75”) scales and all humbucker PUs. Should I try to get used to a short scale? Dunno. One day I may get a real cheap Epiphone and experiment for a while.

The shopping list then is determined by these specs. Here they are.

• 25.5” scale
  
• Wider fretboard. 1.69” min at nut (but string spacing not remain narrow like the new SGs)
  
• 15 or 16” radius (or suitable compound radii)
  
• Fixed bridge.
  
• Single coil pick up. At least one, and at the neck position.
  

Sound simple? Well, just try & scare up this sort of animal. I found only one direct match.

it’s the Hagstrom Metropolis-S

http://www.hagstromguitars.eu/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=2118&category_id=15&Itemid=7

Otherwise the closest I could get were humbuckers with split coils. There’s not many of those either and they are all shy. Here are a few candidates:

Peavey Predator: Cheap and pretty good quality. If the retailers are all correct they are made (variously) in Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia. Who knows if one is better than another? The trouble is that in the UK there are almost none.

Hagstrom Deuce: Similar problem to Peavey. Almost no stockists.

Godin LGX-SA: Expensive at £1,500. It’s also very high tech with direct Synth access. There is one stockist 130 miles away.

After weeks of deliberation and stock searches I decided on the Deuce. For the longest time however, I thought I was buying the Godin.

I think the Deuce is poorly represented (on the web generally and at stockists) precisely because it doesn’t look like one of the iconic ‘few’.

*The Double Cutaway Les Paul doesn’t look like a Les Paul. It was only in production briefly so not even Gibson managed to market them effectively. Perhaps when faced with this option, buyers would reason ‘If I’m paying money for a Les Paul, then I want it to damn well look like a Les Paul’.

The Deuce is the least reviewed or demo’d model of all (Web & YouTube). It’s difficult to find also, appearing on so few retail web sites in the UK (the US, as usual can get everything).

All this meany I had to take a chance and order one blind. I'll post a review shortly.