Gary Cooper hits the trail again, in search of the perfect guitar

Probably Britain's best-selling guitar brand, Westone are currently facing the fiercest challenge in their short but illustrious history. Challenged at the cheaper end of their wide range by rapidly improving models from Hohner, Vision, Kramer, Marlin and the like, they also face Japanese-made competitors in the prestige ranks from Charvel, ESP, Schecter and others who are out to upset their dominant market shareholding. Westone have recently hit back, at both the top and bottom ends, with two new models — the luxurious Panteras and the budget priced Clipper. I've recently been living with both.

Westone Pantera X390

Unlike some other Japanese guitars, Westone have never made much impact on the professional market. You might see name players toting Yamahas, Ibanez, Arias and Tokais, but Westones have been, with just a few exceptions, confined to a role which has made them the semi-pro's guitar par excellence which he or she moves on from when fame and fortune strikes. This must have hurt the pride of Matsumoku (the Japanese makers of Westone), because there is no reason at all why this should be — their factory, after all, actually makes some of these other pro instruments, and only marketing and promotion can explain why Westone haven't been seen as pro and other brands have.

But Westone obviously now feel the need to aim at the top of the pyramid — after all, having a name player wearing your axe does wonders for the sale of less expensive models. Maybe they're responding to the challenge of Charvel, who seem out to prove that a Japanese-made guitar can now command premium prices? For whatever reasons, the latest 'Super-Strat' class Panteras are like no other Westones before. They range from the 'cooking' Standards through to the 'DeLuxe Professional' X390. None of them are cheap so, on the principle of 'in for a penny' I borrowed the RRP £679 X390 to review.

SPECIFICATIONS & DETAILS

The Pantera X390 most certainly isn't a typical Westone — not by any imaginable standards! Supplied with a fairly tough case, it lifts from the 'teddy bear' lining feeling more like a British or American custom job than a production-line guitar, and so it should; it's a handmade instrument which both looks and feels like one. In IT Issue 11 1 commended the Charvels for having a standard of finish that beat other Japanese guitars hollow. I take it back. The standard to which my sample Pantera was finished not only equalled that of the Charvel, it matched even American and British handmade guitars. I can't let my comments about the X390's finish go at that, either. Just two colours are offered for this model — 'Pearl White' or 'Caspian Blue'. Mine came in white, and had a pearly glow to its semi-matt looks which rivals anything I've seen, bar none. I wouldn't swear that this was a cellulose finish but it was damn close.

The Pantera's body is carved from one piece of Maple in such a way as to share some of the qualities which make the Warwick bass (see my review elsewhere in this issue) perhaps the most comfortable bass I've yet played. The similarity lies in the Westone's curved top and a dished back, ensuring the snuggest possible fit to your body — sexy isn't in it! The Pantera's neck, meanwhile, is of Canadian Rock Maple, fixed (presumably glued) via what Westone call a 'bayonet' system. Whatever they call it, it feels like a straight through neck, access to the top (24th) fret on the double octave scale being as easy as you'll ever find on any guitar. Constructionally the unbound neck is flawless. Faced with Ebony, it bears quite fat and perhaps rather high profiled frets, with neat pearloid dot markers and a very slight camber. Dimensionally, though, I think it's going to disappoint quite a lot of players, but I'll come to that later.

The X390's hardware classes it as yet another of the currently inescapable 'Super-Strats', albeit a very superior one. The machines are the usual Japanese types (Gotohs?) which are certain to satisfy, as will the carbon graphite nut and the inclusion of a Kahler Standard trem with locking nut. The pickups, however, are a departure from the usual two single coils and a bridge hum-bucker format, comprising a pair of Westone's own 'OFC' humbuckers. These, the makers claim, are wound with 'oxygen free copper'. Whether this really matters or not is beside the point, because the pickups sound superb, making the technical whys and wherefores largely superfluous. Controlling the two pickups is a very workable arrangement of a single flick selector and three large rotary controls, the frontmost handling volume, the middle (neck pickup tone) setting single coil operation when pulled and the rearmost (bridge tone) setting phase reverse when 'out'. It's an easy system to use and remember; ideal for on-stage operation.

PLAYING & SOUND

Trying to assess these two qualities had me near schizophrenic. First impressions of the Pantera made me wonder what had got into Matsumoku's designers when they were working out the neck dimensions — what do they have, gorilla hands over there? I'm afraid the X390 has a neck which owes nothing at all to the Hamer/Kramer/Charvel school of super-fast tree splinters. Not only did my sample measure 1 ¹¹/₁₆" at the nut (as against the usual 1 ⁹/₁₆"), but the depth of the neck was — er — pretty substantial too, making the Pantera feel very much not what you expect from a this type of guitar. Taxed with this point, Mark Ray (UK Westone distributor FCN's widely respected guitar guru) admitted to me that he too was a bit puzzled by the manufacturer's decision to fit such a chunky neck, but explained that Matsumoku had told him this choice was the result of product testing in the USA, where the rage for left-hand hammering techniques among HM players was creating a need for really sturdy necks — hence the half tree-trunk on the otherwise svelte Pantera. Well, American HM players can have it their way if they like, and in some senses I can see what they mean. If you wear the Pantera on your hip and thus have the neck almost in front of your torso, its weight won't matter too much. For that matter, the sort of left hand posture which you almost inevitably adopt when playing a la Van Halen (smattering notes on the fret-board with your right hand and fingering them with your left) tends to leave you not winding your thumb round the back of the neck, thus making a fat neck less noticeable. Westone also claim that this sort of right hand battering calls for sturdier necks than those found on conventional 'SS class' guitars. Sorry, I think they're just plain wrong about that. I wouldn't claim to be an HM stylist personally, but I can manage most of these tricks and stunts (in my own limited fashion) just as well on a slim necked Kramer, Hamer et al as I could on this Westone and have never found their use weakening a neck. As far as the Pantera was concerned, all the extra thousandths of an inch did for me was make an otherwise fabulous guitar a struggle to play at speed.

But the other half of my schizophrenic attitude to the X390 came from the Westone's sound. Here it scored higher than any Japanese guitar I've played since I fell for an early Yamaha SG2000. Really, the Pantera has a sound and a character quite unlike any Japanese guitar I've played. 'Character' is a hard quality to explain, but it's what the Pantera has. An all-Maple body (especially with an all-Maple neck) suggests a lot of highs, and certainly the X390 has a treble peak (especially set to single coil) that will get the blood flowing better than anything short of a lunchtime appointment with Count Dracula. But try the Pantera with a good valve amp (take a bow, my Laney AOR) and set the pickups to humbucking. Here's a guitar which can not only screech and scream with overdriven harmonics but which can also deliver a fat and warm sweetness which allows you to change the entire sound character by the mere push or pull of a control.

Take your hats off to Westone, ladies and gentlemen. The X390 Pantera is the first Japanese guitar which can rival the British and American specialist-built models sound for sound, tone for tone. I've never heard a Japanese guitar like it. But what a desperate pity about that neck!

CONCLUSION

Please slim-down this neck, Westone. Every other feature of your Pantera X390 is right. It's a genuine original, with character and a manufacturing and finishing standard which can equal any other maker's. It has a sound which can set the soles of your shoes alight and warm your heart by turns. All it lacks is a fast neck. Forget those who say you need a fat neck to withstand HM right hand techniques — others manage without such exaggerated dimensions, and you can too. Thin that neck, Westone, and you've got not just a market beater but a world beater here: leave it as it is, and I suspect Charvel (to name but one) are going to grind your ambitions into the dust.

Westone Clipper

Just as Westone are faced with strong competition at the top of their range, so their cheaper models are now threatened by the lower-priced products coming from the ever-improving Korean manufacturers. Recognising the potential threat, FCN recently set their minds to devising a counter-weapon for their Japanese suppliers and, having deliberated, arrived at the Clipper, a model which, from its origins in FCN's Mark Ray's roughbook, was in sample form and on display at the British Music Fair a bare few days later.

SPECIFICATIONS & DETAILS

Korean labour costs being impossibly low against Japanese wage rates, any Japanese guitar maker who wants to compete directly has to do so with some nifty design and manufacturing concepts, and the £149 Clipper bears witness that this is just what's been done. Fundamentally, I suppose, the Westone Clipper is a Telecaster clone. Just as the Tele was originally designed for ease of mass production, so is the Clipper been, and, almost inevitably, it's absorbed a lot of the Tele's basic functional appeal as a result.

In trying to keep costs down, Westone have chosen to assemble the Clipper's body from what they describe as 'selected hardwoods'. This could mean almost anything, but my sample had a decent weight and balance, and the sound certainly didn't betray inferior materials. Quite possibly the factory uses whatever they have to hand at the time, but, at £149, who's arguing?

It is possible to be certain about the 22 fret neck's materials, however. Westone have used Maple, fitted with a surprisingly good quality Rosewood fingerboard which sports original 'Fender-thin' frets. Unfortunately (for me, at any rate) the Clipper's neck is satin finished on the back - something I can't stand. But as this is such a common feature today, and a quality which many players seem happy to accept, there's not much point my beefing about it, is there? Having said that, the Westone's neck is ultra-fast and really comfortable to play, the thin frets certain to appeal to those (many?) players who are growing sick and tired of the fitment of jumbo frets for the sake of it. Importantly, the Clipper was beautifully set-up when it reached me, and having heard from many dealers that Westones arrive in good condition, this suggests that any sample you see won't be too different from mine — in which case you're likely to appreciate this guitar's immediately playable feel, great action, good quality (light gauge) strings and 'ready to gig' air.

The Clipper's hardware makes for easy use on stage. The machines work positively, even if they look a little flimsy, and the basic Fender-style bridge is equally good. Twin pickups adorn the guitar, but not in a way which you'd immediately recognise, because they look like a single humbucker, both coils being placed together near the bridge. In fact this arrangement offers twin independent single coil pickups which are simply placed side by side. These are controlled by two metal flick switches (on/off for each) and are allied to a solitary volume control. No tone rotary? With such a switching arrangement you don't need one.

PLAYING & SOUND

I've already said how well set-up the Clipper was when it arrived, but this can't be stressed too highly. Had I been playing a gig that night I'd have been perfectly happy to take the Clipper with me — it was that good. The neck is essentially Fender-like in feel (a quality accentuated by the use of thin frets) and it has a very Tele-like balance plus what I can only describe as 'chuckability'. The neck's dimensions lend themselves equally to lead and rhythm playing, but it's the instrument's sound that counts above all. What's it like? Superb!

The Westone Clipper isn't a balls-to-the-walls HM lead guitar. It lacks the humbucker and trem unit beloved of metal mayhem players, after all. What it does have, however, is an icy, early Tele-like 'cut', which makes it perfect for slicing rhythm parts and sharply defined lead work. Look at it through two ends of a telescope, either as a Steve Cropper Tele-substitute at an exceptionally affordable price, or as a modern, sharp-edged lead guitar — the Clipper will fulfil either role quite happily. As such, it has few (if any) competitors among today's Strat-o-Clones. It's quite unique.

CONCLUSION

Fast to play, equally suitable for edgy and sharp rhythm or attacking lead work, Westone's Clipper offers real character for a low asking price. By no means just for beginners, it's a really unusual guitar with a lot to offer. It won't appeal to the HM player, but for guitarists playing anything from Country through Soul, Pop, Folk/Rock and other non-over the top styles it offers remarkable value for money. My estimation is that it'll sell just as well as it deserves to — like hot cakes!

Westone Pantera X390 (RRP £679 inc. case & VAT) & Clipper (RRP £149 inc. VAT)

More details on Westone from FCN Music Ltd., (Contact Details).