Indonesian Squiers can be fine – what it lacks in headstock-credibility, it more than makes up for as an adequately constructed host for the tones that are available. The bridge humbucker is a DiMarzio Gravity Storm model – a medium output unit with Steve Vai in mind. The neck humbucker is a DiMarzio Air Norton model which has been embraced by many a recording artist and has been highly enough regarded to survive in DiMarzio’s core range for 30 years. On their own, as regularly installed pick-ups they as good as you should expect, but that’s just the starting point of this guitar.
 
We like the Air Norton model as it is one of the few humbuckers that splits to single coil effectively. We like the harmonics and the dynamics it offers. The chickenhead in place of the lower tone control governs this pick-up configuration. It is a 6-way rotary switch that delivers every possible combination of the north and south coils – each individual coil, parallel connected coils in and reverse phased, and series connected coils in and reverse phased.
 
We like the Gravity Storm model as it retains a clarity often missing from hot bridge pick-ups. There are clean opportunities as well as heavier overdriven power. The master volume knob pulls up to configure this humbucker in parallel which opens up the sound, gives it a hot single coil character without the mid growliness of a P-90 sound which usually fails the clean up completely.
Mixing the 2 pick-ups offers a massive array of parallel connected tones – each with a specific character, there is definite audible difference with each configuration. You have the single coils, and varying degrees of grind depending on how each humbucker is configured.
 
Selecting the neck pick-up and pulling up the master tone control will connect the 2 pick-ups in series, and another huge array of stronger growlier tones is available.
 
The reverse phase options on the neck humbucker now begin to make perfect sense as combining it with the bridge unit in series provides you with the kind of sounds that battery powered pre-amps can offer. A brightness, a sparkle; almost piezo like especially if the neck humbucker is parallel reverse phased. It is another huge area of tonality to explore.
 
The Squier guitar was a victim of some failed DIY – these models have thinner bodies than most Fenders, and someone didn’t put tape around the drill bit to remind them of that. That is a hole in the rear of the guitar. Just a little one, but we really don’t see the point of spending time fixing that, and we can’t justify writing a guitar off for this. It must live on and encourage fun and creativity.