Fernandes GM-85

This rather subtle shy and retiring guitar was a signature model for Kenichi Ito, lead guitarist for the Japanese electro-pop outfit Iceman. He had a proper rock sound and if only he'd come to me I could have given him extra crazy sounds for his solos. This may look ungainly, but actually is very comfortable to play, and has a mighty fine quality spec as did many signature model Fernandes guitars.

This one arrived with a refusal to make any sound at all, but a malfunctioning mini-switch and a confused Japanese guitar technician who somehow managed to make a simple problem very complex allowed this to come to us having been given up on. Never give up on guitars.

The original spec for these was a single volume, a 3 way pick-up selector, a kill switch enabler and a kill switch. As both of these Fernandes pick-ups are 2 conductor units, don't believe any claims of coil-splitting. This other switch was a standby / on / on with killswitch. But it was damaged anyway so in went a chicken head over a rotary to enable the craziness Kenichi needed a floor pedal for.

Now we have a 3 way pick-up selector, a kill switch on that arcade button which is active at all times, and the crazy-chicken which when rotated, provides that thin (yet still powerful) cutting icey raspy tone that Kenichi wanted for his solos. Should have come to me! No batteries, just a little wizardry on how the pick-ups talk to each-other.

The tremolo is divine - very slick and accurate - the guitar plays surprisingly comfortably and is genuinely more than just a gimmicky weird shape. You could take this one a little more seriously than you perhaps thought. If you need stage presence; if you do the occasional Prince cover, if you glam-rock seriously, if you just want to get noticed, then this is a great useful guitar that will deliver on those fronts too.