“It sounds like it’s got this soul and this personality that’s taken years to develop," he says
Baldacci Guitars’ Bighorn electric has been making a “big” splash in the guitar market over the past year. And with good reason. The new range, which encompasses the Bighorn Standard, Bighorn Semi-Hollow and the Bighorn Hollowbody, packs a vintage feel in a sleek design with a highly versatile, modern approach.
And because blues master Justin Johnson embodies both traditional and modern elements in his playing, we thought he’d be the perfect person to try out one of these impressive guitars. So we hooked him up with a Bighorn Standard in a beautiful sunburst finish.
Not surprisingly, the first thing that impressed Justin was its striking looks. “Man, that sunburst is just on fire,” he remarks in the above demo video. “That is looking so bright, so vivid.”
The Bighorn Standard boasts a flame maple top and a mahogany body, with flame maple binding in between.
There’s also a Standard-C mahogany neck, and “the neck and the back both have a real nice satin finish that’s super-comfortable,” Justin remarks.
(Image credit: Future)
Other features include a rosewood fingerboard with a 12-inch radius and a 12th fret “Mountain” inlay, a 25.125-inch scale length and a choice of a wraparound or tremolo bridge.
The tuners, meanwhile, are Baldacci-made Buffalo Locking tuners. “Why are they called buffalo tuners?” Justin asks. “It’s because of the buffalos, baby,” he says, pointing to the silhouettes impressed on the back of the peg heads.
As for pickups, the Bighorn is loaded with a pair of Mountain humbuckers. As Justin points out, Baldacci “worked closely with Darkmoon Pickups to voice them specifically for their guitars.”
The ‘buckers are controlled by standard volume and tone knobs and a three-way toggle, but there’s also another switch on board. “And what this switch does is it actually coil splits the neck pickup only,” Justin says. “It turns that humbucker into a single coil, and that’s pretty unique. A lot of times when you have coil splits on a guitar like this with two humbucker pickups, generally it will turn both humbuckers into single coils. This one is unique in that the neck pickup becomes a single coil, but the bridge pickup remains a humbucker.”
But enough talk. As Justin says, the Bighorn “looks killer and it feels great. I’m excited to play it. Let’s plug it in and check it out.”
And plug it in and check it out he does. His first impressions? The Bighorn “sounds ‘old.’ This thing is fresh off their bench - you can still smell the paint drying – and yet it sounds like it’s got this soul and this personality that’s taken years to develop.”
Not a bad start at all. To find out more, watch the whole video above, and then head over to Baldacci Guitars.
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