While I was wandering around this year's BMF it occurred to me that the six-string side of the mass produced guitar industry was in a rather flaccid and unoriginal state. The influence of the Strat has never seemed more apparent than today although the species has evolved to include the obligatory locking trem, pointed and angled back headstock and unadventurous electronics. Okay I thought, I'll set myself a task — to try and find something a little bit different!

Quite sometime later I'd virtually given up when I staggered onto the Washburn UK stand (I work alphabetically you see!) Peering through my shades I saw something A BIT DIFFERENT. It had, of course, the regulation shapes and locking trem but I managed to pick out a couple of interesting looking design elements. It was enough for me, quickly arranging a review with Gavin 'No more Mr Nice Guy and I've got the dogs to prove it' Mortimer, I was off to my pad to await the arrival of the G-40V.

Isolated from the numbing effect of so many lookalikes the G-40V seems more impressive than I'd thought. The body holds no surprises with its Stratish looks and standard contouring but the neck is quite a different matter. Basically it's a bolt-on Rock Maple piece which extends a good inch further into the body than is normal. Washburn call this a 'harmonic transfer neck joint', the idea being that the more neck material you have in the body the better the string vibrates unhindered to the bridge point. Hardly a new idea in its concept but one which falls between the standard bolt-on and neck-through-body schools of thought.

In terms of feel the neck scores loads of points with a slim oval shape which is immediately comfortable. The two octave board is made from 'Carbonite' — a form of phenolin resin plastic which vastly improves the sustain qualities of the instrument. It's adorned with 'drift' shaped pearl-like inlays which give it the required American look. A fashionable flat camber is included on the board as well as wide flat frets which are very nicely polished and give no cause for complaint.

Washburn provide a handy offensive weapon in the headstock design — just in case the punters get too friendly — and the advantages of the angled back neck — pitch and string distribution are all a bit academic as a locking nut is provided. A smart touch is the binding around the black faced head which matches the white Washburn logo. The G-40V was finished in a very striking metallic red (black is also offered) which seemed faultless in its application.

A black finished Wonderbar trem system was fitted and should be quite familiar to most. Not the easiest system to set up that I've encountered, but it does the job very nicely with a light action to the bar that is very responsive. Certainly this sample was well set-up, the intonation being fine, as was the action. The locking nut is the new Washburn design which features three flipdown clamps as opposed to the usual Allen-keyed bolts. Under each of the flaps is a tension wheel which pulls the string clamp up; the flap can then be pushed down either behind or in front of the nut to finally tension and lock the clamp. In practice the flaps can be quite stiff to activate so that the string is properly clamped and if you're careful you can 'lock' the clamps down quite tightly without actually locking the string, especially on the top two strings. Although this locking nut does away with an Allen-key which is a major advantage it didn't seem quite as reliable as the former system. I found it quite hard work to successfully push down the flap locks with enough tension to lock the strings properly. Getting them up again was even harder. Still maybe I'm just a weed — may be either locking nut could be offered depending on whether you're a man, woman or mouse!

The actual nut, made from what would appear to be the same material as the fingerboard was well cut giving a low 1st fret action; truss-rod adjustment is easy via a plate behind the locking nut.

With a couple of interesting elements already mentioned the G-40V's crowning glory is the triple-coil humbucker, controlled via three recessed push/push switches, a push/pull master volume control and tone control. The two rotary controls are recessed into the face of the body and fitted with black knurled knobs. Although this recessing looks smart, when the volume knob is down only about 10mm protrudes above the face of the body making violin effects harder than usual, although normal adjustment is easy.

The triple-coil humbucker features blade pole pieces which are non-adjustable and the overall height of the pickup is adjusted via four Allen-keyed bolts, two per side. Internally the electronics are neat although left unscreened — a major oversight on an instrument of this price. Still, overall the quality is very high in terms of construction and design. Washburn install their own strap locks too which are very neat although if you lose your strap with them on you're a bit stuck, as they slot into a tube in the body of the guitar leaving nothing protruding at all.

On first impressions the pickup selection seems rather confusing, but basically we have two modes: when the volume control is down the individual coils are wired in parallel, when the volume control is up the coils operate in series. In the parallel mode the three push switches have an on/off function, down is on, up is off. This gives us seven sounds and it would appear that the middle coil has a phase reverse on it as whenever it is activated with another coil an out-of phase tone is achieved. Basically this mode offers us the single coil sounds alone plus mixtures in or out of phase. By depressing all three switches we get a typical Strat tone as if the mid position was selected between the bridge and middle pickup on a Strat.

By pulling up the volume control we go into series mode but without as much variation. The push/pull switches no longer have an on/off function so the operation in this mode isn't quite as easy to grasp. If all the switches are up we get just the bridge and mid in series behaving like a high output humbucker. If only switch three is depressed we get all three coils in series which is like feeding time at the zoo — chaos! A great hooligan sound that one. Any other combinations in this mode revert the output to the back pickup coil alone. In total that's nine sounds, from HM to country all out of one guitar. For live purposes I guess you wouldn't need all these, if you did you might have a few nightmares selecting the combinations. If for example you were in the series mode (volume switch up) with the mid/bridge humbucker selected (all three switches up) and then hit the volume switch down all the sound would disappear. It might be better if the switches were wired the opposite way in the series mode so that all three down gave you the humbucker and then by hitting the volume down you'd go to out-of-phase Strat tone which might be very handy.

Overall though, quite some beast, it really is very versatile — definitely one for the modern guitarist needing crystal clear chording and HM soloing all in one. Playing the G-40V is a bit nice too. Its slim neck is very fast and the instrument sustains very well — in terms of playability and sound there isn't a lot I don't like about the guitar.

Conclusions

It is good to see a company like Washburn actually bothering to do something a bit different when they could sit back like so many others and worry about the next fashionable colour.

Basically they've got every area covered with this guitar in terms of fashionable shape, their own locking trem, hi-tech plastic fingerboard, innovative pickup design and the best strap locks available today! The machines work too although I only tried them just to check. Tuning stability was fine, I didn't need to re-tune the guitar at all during the review.

It will be interesting to see how the G-40V does as firstly it isn't cheap and secondly, will the pick-up switching be too different for the very conservative UK market? Personally I think any instrument that offers so much both in studio and live environments should be scooped up by the barrow load — and you can quote me on that!

Washburn G-40V Guitar - RRP £821