Floyd Rose-equipped model boasts direct-mount Seymour Duncan pickups, striking Vintage Blue finish
Dean Guitars has added some mouth-wateringmodels to its ever-expanding range lately. And the company continues its impressive run with the new Dean MD 24 F.
Why “F”? Because the new 24-fret model comes loaded with an official Floyd Rose 1000 series locking tremolo system.
And while not every guitarist is well-versed in the art of the whammy, we hooked up YouTube guitar specialist Ryan “Fluff” Bruce with an MD 24 F to show just how easy – and fun – it can be to use.
“I’m not a Floyd Rose kind of guy,” Bruce admits at the top of the demo. “I’m a little bit out of my element… a lot out of my element. But we’re going to have some fun with it. I’m going to lean into it.”
(Image credit: Dean Guitars)
And lean into the MD 24 F he does, putting the Floyd, and the guitar itself, through its paces.
Throughout, he also highlights some of the MD 24 F’s standout features, including the resonant basswood body.
“So you don’t get a lot of weight – about eight pounds,” he says. Add in the flat top with arm cut body contour and you get a guitar that “is really, really comfortable to hold and to play for long periods of time,” Bruce remarks.
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From there, he goes on to praise the C-shape roasted maple neck and fingerboard. “It’s not super thin, it’s also definitely not chunky,” Bruce says. “It’s right in the middle of the road as far as feel.”
What’s more, he adds, “It has a satin finish on the back that does not get sticky when you hand heats up from playing all those burning leads.”
Pickups, meanwhile, are a direct-mount Seymour Duncan APH-1 at the neck and a TB-5 at the bridge, the latter of which, Bruce says, “sounds really thrashy with a lot of midrange character. It reminds me of an old Megadeth record.”
The MD 24 F’s feature set is rounded out by a 25.5” scale, jumbo frets, Grover tuners, dual-action truss rod, single volume control with three-way pickup switch, black hardware and striking Vintage Blue finish.
And you get it all for just $850.
“I think that’s a lot of value for the guitar you’re getting,” Bruce says. Furthermore, he adds, “It’s a fun experience for someone like me who doesn’t play Floyd Rose guitars. I can sit there and dive bomb to my heart’s content and it stays in tune and accurate.”
The Dean MD24 F is, in Bruce’s opinion, “a lot of fun, with a lot of coolness. Overall, I really dug this guitar.”
Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.
