Atlas luthiers

Voodu Child

So I have posted some pics in the pic thread of a custom guitar I ordered from these guys, and said I would do a little summary of the guitar and how good the guys were to deal with.


Pics are here:
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/voodoo_child777/Atlas%20Custom%20guitar/

The guitar is basically a luxury bolt-on, similar to a Suhr or Tom Anderson. Specs are:
-Curly Ash body
-5A Quilt maple top
-Flame maple neck w flame maple fingerboard
-Quality gotoh 2 point trem
-Planet waves locking tuners
-Hand-wound pickups

Its a custom shop, so you could spec it however you wanted. Hardtail, lefty, singlecoils, reverse headstock, flame/quilt, whatever. And it doesnt just extend to basic options - the guitar is totally handcut, so if you wanted it with different shape, contours, headstock, etc, shouldn't be a problem. I looked through their completed builds and could see the the stock of 5A quilt maple they had was unreal, amazing quality. Much better than the flamed maple on any of their guitar tops, so that's something to bear in mind.

Build quality is extremely high. The materials used are insanely high quality, the quilt top is one of the best on any guitar ive seen, and the neck and fingerboard are both similarly high grade. Fit and finish are perfect, factory setup was perfect.

Neck finishing is very good. The fingerboard has lovely abalone inlays and is laquered, the back of the neck is matte finish (probably a tung or wax), very tactile. Its a mainstream Strat style profile, though of course you could get any shape you want, fat or thin. The frets are as level as any guitar ive seen, its a perfect job...however the fret finishing isn't 100%, there were a few tooling marks along some of the frets. Just a few mind, but it would have been a 10/10 otherwise so a bit of a shame. Still fantastic neck. The headstock angle is maybe a little shallow. The fingerboard edges could also be a little more rolled.

The finish is spectactular. Its a custom shop, so they'll do whatever finish you want. I did a mockup of the colour I wanted in photoshop, and they've matched it closely, and it looks pretty spectacular tbh. The grain of the quilt top really pops out. Its finished in nitro, the finish is very well done, but if you look at it in the right light you'll see some hairline 'swirling'. I should point out that this is almost imperceptible, and most nitro guitars get swirling after being wiped/polished a few times anyway, so not a big deal, but i'll be telling them to examine their polishing compounds and materials.

Pickups are their own, a F-spaced in the bridge and regular in the neck. They seem great, no complaints, but its early days yet. Wiring is neat, cavity is shielded, guitar is silent, no complaints.

The hardware is whatever you want, so if there's any complaints its your own fault. I went for a quality gotoh 2-point trem, its a very high quality design and stays in tune 95% as good as a locking design.

The guitar plays and sounds great overall, and looks spectacular. Im pretty fussy so ive found a few niggles, but thats because im fussy and want the review to be 100% honest.

I dealt direct with Andrew at the factory, but they have a UK distributer, and he might have some sort of exclusivity deal so the factory might refuse to deal with you if you email them. Actually I may have caused some sort of argument between the factory and distro by dealing direct :pac:

I didn't deal with the UK guy because I didn't see what service he was offering, other than an extra person adding on their cut of the profit, more shipping costs, extra communication times etc. The guy at the factory I dealt with had perfect english, and communication was spot on. You flesh out a spec and they give you a quote, and they start work after a deposit is put down. Build time was quoted at 6/8 weeks, which is very fast for a custom build, and that was spot on, was finished in around 7 weeks.

Price wasnt 'cheap' but its very reasonable for a custom shop, and ditto for the build time. A lot of the price was materials - a small custom shop like this can't procure materials as cheap as a massive factory. And also bear in mind the quality of the timbers used. You could save money by using lower-grade woods if you wanted.

Its a genuine custom shop, so they'll build whatever you want, guitar or bass, strat style, tele, LP, whatever. Though im always inclined to think that if you just want a plain Strat, buy a Strat, that defeats the whole purpose of a bespoke hand-built guitar. Custom shops are (for me) all about awesome finishes or woods, custom inlays, stuff you can't buy anywhere else. For example, you wouldn't get a top like this on any production guitar, you'd need to get some sort of insanely expesnive PRS private stock or similar to match it. They seem to love doing fancy inlays, so you could get a (gaudy :pac:) dragon on the fingerboard or a dolphin on the body...I wasnt bothered with that, but again, to get something like that on a PRS would cost $20,000 upwards :rolleyes:

Overall, the experience and product was 9/10, no complaints. If you were to get a custom built guitar from a 'first world' luthier, it would probably cost twice this, and thats not even including the insanely high-grade timbers. Though I should point out that there are some other competitive luthiers such as Ran etc, who can also offer custom builds at lower prices.

I'll edit in any more info if I think of it.

Edit:
Direct (Thailand) website is www.guitarandpickup.com (very slow) and there are direct contact email address's there (info@guitarandpickup.com). Though I reckon they'll refer you to the UK distributer from now on, and im not sure what that will do to the price compared with dealing direct.
UK website is http://www.atlas.dymani.com/main2.htm and there'll be a contact address for him there too, though I can't vouch for anything to do with him.

Darkstrike

Thanks for the fantastic review mate, lots of great info.

Wouldn't mind asking them about an Explorer shaped bass with a Hipshot bass trem, and some nice pickups, will they use pickups other than their own?

Doctor J

That top really is something else and it's a great colour too. Thanks for the info.

Voodu Child

Darkstrike wrote: »

Thanks for the fantastic review mate, lots of great info.

Wouldn't mind asking them about an Explorer shaped bass with a Hipshot bass trem, and some nice pickups, will they use pickups other than their own?

Yeah, of course. Not sure if they'd procure them themselves or if they'd want you to send the pickups, but either way don't see it being a problem.

The_g-man

That's a really helpful review voodoo, and I still can't get over the finish on the guitar.:p

I noticed on the jemsite forum that for other buyers they were ok to source genuine dimarzio pickups and gotoh floyds. Some other buyers though were mailing the hipshot trem into the factory to be installed.

Do you have the e-mail address for going direct, the uk page is a bit slow to reply.

sei046

Hey voodoo. In talks with paul at the minute about making me a guitar. looks good there man

boycey

Thats classy alright Voodoo. Love that purple quilt- it makes me think of Cadburys chocolate! Recession friendly top class luthiers eh, top stuff:cool:

DeadSkin

Just lookin' at the rest of the pics there and Wow!!!

Edit: Looking at the UK website there, and they are some tasty looking guitars there. How did ya come across them voodoo?

Voodu Child

DeadSkin wrote: »

How did ya come across them voodoo?

I heard about them them a few years ago, a fella I know on another forum ordered a left-handed PRS replica from them.

So i just put them in the back of my head for a couple of years with the intention of considering them again some day. I had spoken to them already a couple of years ago, so it was just a case of getting back in touch.

Quattroste

Great Review Voodoo. Beautiful Guitar. How long does it take for this jealous feeling to go away

Dord

Quattroste wrote: »

Great Review Voodoo. Beautiful Guitar. How long does it take for this jealous feeling to go away

Approximately 6-8 weeks.


Thanks for the review Voodoo, its a spectacular looking guitar! :cool: